Thought for the Day – 25th July 2013

The Wedding Photos

My Granddaughter had been suspiciously quiet for too long a time. She had gone up the stairs a while ago, and it was time to go and see what she was up to. This time, she was sitting quietly on the floor with the contents of a drawer scattered around her, looking at an album of photographs.

She looked up. ‘Granda, what are these photos about?’ I sat down beside her. ‘Its your mummy’s wedding day. There’s me taking her down the aisle of the church, and there she is with your daddy after they got married, and there’s us all together at the hotel, your mummy and daddy and granny and me.’

She looked at me as if I was stating the obvious. ‘I know all that, Granda. But where was I?’ ‘You weren’t born then’ I told her. She looked puzzled by that, but decided to let it go. That all happened about three years ago. Now she knows all about being born, having watched as the cows and other animals on her daddy’s farm give birth to their young.

But it made me wonder, just when do children become aware that there was a time when they weren’t born, when they weren’t part of the family like they are now. And that led me to remember the words of Jesus, who likened the process of becoming a Christian to being ‘born again.’ He said,
“Truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

As usual, when Jesus taught his followers, he was using something with which they were very well aware to illustrate a great spiritual truth. He wanted his disciples to understand that in their natural condition they were outside God’s family, separated from God because of their inherited sinfulness, and that to remedy that situation would need divine intervention, for just as a baby can’t come to birth without its parents, can’t decide where and when it is going to be born, neither can a sinner do anything to clean up his life and make it acceptable to God. So God does what is needed for us, and gives us new life and a new heart.

At some stage, just like a child realises who its parents are, and leans that it has a birthday, so God awakens his people to the work that he has done for them in Christ, and they will gladly respond by seeking his forgiveness and accepting his love.