The Beginning of a New Life

As many of you experienced parents can surely understand, Michelle's mind and my mind have both been consumed these days with thoughts of our firstborn child that is steadily developing. If God continues to extend his grace toward us, our baby will make his entrance into this world sometime in June (Yes, we found out this past Tuesday that it will be a baby boy!).

Christians sometimes quibble over the biblical definition of a "miracle." I understand that childbirth is not a supernatural event since it occurs within the natural laws set in motion by God in the beginning. Precisely, miracles are events that occur outside of natural laws. However, in the sense that we are overwhelmed by the amazing creative ability of God to form a new life, that power is nothing short of "miraculous." Only God can create life and when we see it happening before our very eyes we see the direct power of our Almighty God! God speaks to us through the work of his hands when we look to the starlit sky, a radiant sunset, a brilliant rainbow, and certainly when we look into the eyes of a newborn child (cf. Psalm 19:1).

When I first saw the ultrasound video of our little child, the words of Psalm 139:13-16 jumped right off the page and into living color, "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well...Your eyes saw my unformed substance...." Thanks to medical science I was able to do something that once only God was able to do--see the unformed (and developing) substance of my baby boy. Anyone that has looked at an early ultrasound of a baby should recognize the truthfulness that human life has already begun. God recognizes human life as having begun within the womb, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you" (Jeremiah 1:5).

Life in all its forms is truly amazing. It is a wondrously curious event to see a seed sprout into stem and leaf. Still more staggering is to see the joyfully independent life that springs forth from a newborn colt or a spunky little puppy. But there is something more staggering about God's power to infuse a human soul into the flesh and bones of a developing human being. Human science may be able to explain human anatomy and physiology but it is at a loss to explain how a human being has a spirit (or soul) unlike all other animal life. The writer of Ecclesiastes said it well, "As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything" (11:5, ESV). It defies imagination and moves me to tears to consider that the picture on the ultrasound screen is a human life that has begun and will continue throughout eternity. I shudder at the weight of the responsibility God placed upon our shoulders as parents to train our child to come to know Him.

We can become so accustomed to our created surroundings and the events that take place in our world that we don't take time to consider the amazement of it all. There is nothing like seeing a newborn baby to give you spiritual clarity. I like the quote attributed to Albert Einstein, "There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." Although one might go too far with this quote, I choose to live my life seeing the power of God all around me and give him all the glory!