Forward: I was recently baptized in the Holy Spirit, which I somehow always thought was going to turn me into a spiritual giant. Instead I ended up in a position of infancy. I fought that like a baby fights a nap until I realized how Jesus came to earth: as a baby. Even though he was actual God he was also a helpless infant. Then I remembered his conversation with Nicodemus about being born again and smiled a little bit. God does not promise us that we will not be helpless, he promises to be our help, to give us new life, to change everything about us. It was humbling to realize that while I was walking with God for the last decade, he was reverse engineering me.

Being born again is less about pinning down a start date to the salvation process, and more about something the Lord leads us through in our stories. A certain “becoming as a child” again. Of course I have the full maturity of an adult and this has nothing to do with the nonsense of actually trying to identify as a child again, but understanding that the supernatural work of God is taking our relationship outside the constraints of chronological living. Jesus was trying to tell Nicodemus that the work of the Gospel reaches backwards, forwards, sideways… that we must be reborn. It must happen for the believer, but as I am seeing we really can’t make the Gospel fit our linear understanding.

The following is born out of the comfort of the Holy Spirit to me. A gentleness, a kindness, an illumination of the balm of God’s story. A lullaby.

My love:

Sometimes in a world of harsh and conflicting realities we need a gentle hand and voice. Someone who comes along and places a finger under our chin, tips it up and says, “my child, I see you, and that your heart is for me. I honor that. I am proud of you. You have failed, it is true, but you are getting back up every time.”

I AM with you always.

Stay soft, little one. You learned after your physical birth to be strong and stop crying, and there’s many times we do have to be strong, but love is not that place. Loosen the ropes of self-sufficiency when it comes to love. We know it’s not a fair world, is it? You have had your share of struggle and trial, and you know there may be more. That’s a heavy burden to bear if you try to carry it for tomorrow, so “let the evil of today be sufficient.” 

Rest, my beloved. Rest. You have been given wings to flee back to your mountain — not only if you need refuge, but for your life source. Your God is a God of covering, which does not mean a place or presence which you find only when you are exhausted or in need of rescuing. Return, return, return. As the Scripture says, “in rest and returning you find your strength, but you were not willing.” Be willing, be willing to rest.

A word about your mind. It is a place of great fear for many, as well as security. You will not find peace either by shunning or relying on your intellect and knowledge. They are gifts, but they are not designed to give you life. 

Do not be afraid, because there is no place your mind and heart can go where God is not present. You confuse yourself, but you can’t confuse God. He will always be there to wash you in a peace that passes understanding, but you will have to trust him. Okay? Trust in God leads us to a renewed mind, not a clouded one. God will never communicate to you through vague obscurities, accusations, or condemnations. The mind has to filter through a lot of junk, so go gentle on yourself, but do not give any space to the accusations. Be gracious to yourself, and intolerant of condemnation. You don’t have to get it right, when it is Jesus’ righteousness in which we stand. God is capable to finish the work he started in you.

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Your God is a God of unusual requests. He does not command your obedience. He does not mandate you to love him, but asks that if you love him, you will also love his people. He does the most unique things, like loving first when the burden of repentance was upon you. You may do the same for others. Don’t wait for repentance to love.

Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

Beloved, he does not love you because you repented, he loves you to repentance. Our obedience and surrender is always to be of the willing sort. Anyone who would force you to do otherwise is not of God; they lie and are not part of the truth. Understand that his command to love him, yourself and neighbor with all your heart means that you are capable of it because he loved first. It is not a harsh command. It is from One who believes in your fullness and has made available the power to live in such love. 

Even your brokenness darling, and here I move slowly because of the great pain I see you are in — even your brokenness, illness, your crushed dreams — even that is not God breaking you for your sin. That work has been done on the cross.

 Understand that there are, however, many obstacles and a malignant enemy who would see your way to freedom blocked. If Satan could have joy, he would find it in our destruction. Here then, is a plot twist: God takes what the enemy means for evil and turns it for our good. What was meant to destroy us is the very thing which brings us the feet of the Greatest Healer the world knows, but does not truly Know. To our astonishment, the way which we perceived so black and irreparable becomes a place of light under the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Jesus walked our way, so we can take his Way. We enter into his death and lose our own life, so that we may find the life which will never die.

We therefore receive the wealthiest inheritance which any human could ever know: becoming a co-heir with the Son of God. Jesus gave up his “only son” status, to bring many sons and daughters to the table. 

We take up our cross and follow Jesus, who modeled what it looks like not to protect yourself from trial and suffering, but to walk into it for the sake of love. Count it all joy, my dear ones, when you walk through refining fire, knowing that this will bring you through to the kind of love which will leave you lacking for nothing. He is bringing you to wholeness.

Beloved, he draws near to the broken-hearted. He carefully takes the painful cracks of our soul and spirit and binds them up, so that we can heal together. 

Go outside, dear ones. Look at the night sky, the morning stars, and listen to the way nature continually lifts up the glory of praise the Creator through the accomplishment of their gift. Even the cicada and his rough scrapings are exactly where he is meant to be. 

You will wake up tomorrow and wonder what you can offer the King of Glory, and you can offer him exactly what he gave you: your humanity. Sing. Hug your people. Live in wonder and curiosity and worship. Recognize the holiness of changing the oil in the car and taking out the trash. See the importance of details, because God cares about the very smallest thing in your life. He numbers your hairs which fall in the shower. He sees the sparrow, one of the lowliest of birds. 

If it is given to you to wrestle the weightier matters of thoughts and heart, stabilize yourself always by returning to the mundane. Do not neglect meeting together with your family and friends. Your center is not found when you understand the large things of life, but when the most insignificant and inglorious parts of your life becomes worship. 

Anyone can go to church and worship God. Anyone can study for hours. Only children of God can live a life of worship while walking a child through a temper tantrum, vacuuming out a car, or taking care of the hundreds of details of the everyday. 

He made you to live life, love, and if you assume that spirituality is found aside from the life you live, you will miss the heart of God. He is there wherever you go, whatever you do. “Abide.” Once the Gospel of God is in every thread woven through your life, then you find the heart of God for his Creation. 

You will see how a god, GOD, gave up everything. We think of Jesus as having paid the ultimate price, but we forget that Jesus is God. God gave up everything. He gave up glory, son-ship, spirit, breath, and took on your despair, doubt, abandonment, past, present, and future. He became a little baby first, so the world through Him might be saved.

For God so loved the world…

The Father looks at his little baby, and the delight is written all over him. He is so enamored with what he made, in fact, that he inspired 40 people to write 66 books over the span of approx 1500 years. In this you see the full range of creation, birth, rebellion, hope, guidance, consequence, anger, patience, goodness, gentleness, justice and peace. Redemption. All things which comprise the story of a loving God with the largest family the world has ever seen. It’s epic. It’s gory, it’s glory, it’s sometimes unbelievable. It’s more beautiful than anything anyone could comprehend, and there’s dirt involved from the very foundations.

Babies and children, and our helplessness, are a central part of understanding the mystery of the Gospel. My dear friend, curl up and let the King of Kings — Who is your Father — sing over you the song that he has written into the stars, the earth, the skies, the green things, the hopes and fears of all the years, and which you are ready to hear.

I love you too,

L. Raine

Photo up top by engin akyurt