20 weeks along and 20 weeks to go, we are officially half way. With every day that passes of this pregnancy, my eyes are opened more and more to the truths God is working out in my heart. Although I have more truth than I know what to do with, God graciously continues to teach and convict my heart. Two things I’ve been learning and thinking through over the past few weeks are these: 1. The weight of the responsibilities God has entrusted to us, and 2. How the graces of God are so intricately woven into and so immensely tied up in these responsibilities.
The most recent and relevant example is our baby on the way. The responsibility of this needs no explanation. The grace of God in this responsibility is this: I deserve death, instead we conceive and will soon birth a child. Wow. As my eyes are opened to these glimpses of grace, my heart longs all the more to extend this grace to my child. I believe this is the way the Gospel is designed to work itself out in our lives. When I clearly see and hold fast to the Gospel, that is, the grace given me in Christ, I am full of gratitude and in this have a greater love for Jesus and those around me. I don’t have to be anxious or weighed down by this responsibility because it is the grace of God. Our baby is still being formed in the womb. I have not seen him, nor held him, nor heard him cry, but even still, his conception is enough for me to taste the unconditional love and grace I have in Christ. I will soon be responsible to father a child, to raise him, to love him, and to teach him how to live. Praise God I can rest in the grace already governing my inability to so. I deserve death, God gives me a child.
Another example is the responsibility I have as a husband. The grace of God in this is: I am, by my sinful nature, unloveable... yet God gives me the love of Christ. He didn’t stop there, He then calls me to love my wife with all the fullness of love given me in Christ. To love her faithfully, passionately, and self-sacrificially with all humility and tenderness. What? I can feel the weight of this call even as I type these words. When the world looks at my love for Elkie, they should see the love of Christ for His church. I am not quite there but already sit in the grace and love of Christ.
The more I can see and understand these glimpses of grace, the more I can see and understand the complete joy that will be mine in eternity with Him. This is why I say, “not quite, yet already”.
We are halfway through the pregnancy, 20 weeks and counting. Not quite there, yet already resting in the fact that God is fearfully and wonderfully forming his inmost parts. The responsibility is ours, our lives are His.
-Ben
