Tuesday Truth: Nudge from a Newborn

Soft, pure, powerless

Entirely captivating

Tiny wordless wonder,

Asking nothing, needing everything

Newborns. Moments after their birth, we check to make sure they have all their fingers and toes. We make comments about how much hair they have, or don’t have. We try to assess who they look like. We marvel. We can’t believe the day has finally arrived. We take them home, and it’s simply magical.

But no matter how prepared we think we are, they seem to catch us off-guard with their weird sleep patterns and incessant needs. They catch us off-guard as well with their adorable utterances and moments of intimate recognition and connection. There are no words to describe the wonder which is a newborn baby.

But just what goes through their minds? They are experiencing everything in their world for the first time. It is new, stimulating, and sometimes overwhelming. They don’t yet have a language to use—they are taking in images and interpreting them virtually by instinct. What is good, what is desirable, what is pleasant. They are virtual sponges for for sensory data.

They learn to be soothed by a soft, gentle touch. They learn the difference between comforting sounds and startling or scary sounds. They are aware of light, movement, temperature—taking it all in and relying on us to regulate it all to their liking and requirements.

Newborns are continually learning, which will lead to more and more independence as they grow—with its corresponding risk-taking and “getting into” things. But in the early days, they are so completely dependent upon their parents and caregivers. 

            It’s not until they become mobile and can do some things on their own that they learn of such dangers as whacking one’s head on a piece of furniture, getting one’s leg stuck in the bars of the crib, or eventually…falling down.

So we too, as newborns in Christ, soak up the surroundings of our newfound environment like virtual sponges. We rely on the maturity and mentoring of others and are amazed as we learn new things each day—new facets of God’s Kingdom. And with tending, we grow, no longer craving “spiritual milk” (I Peter 2:2) but sampling heartier fare, “solid food,” which “ is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14).

It is in this growth process that we sometimes lose an element that is so wonderful about newborn life in Christ—our sense of sheer wonder and awe. Like when a baby falls in love with the sound of music, or coos as his head is rinsed with warm water, or discovers his hand for the first time. We forget the creative nature of God and that there is always new wonder to be found.

“Many, LORD my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare” (Psalm 40:5). Let us not become so “grown up” that we lose sight of the truly amazing nature of the God  we serve.