Good morning…
As we enjoyed our current favorite show from the comfort of our bed, one sentence in a commercial caught my attention. I grabbed a pen and a box of Christmas matches still lingering on my dresser, and I jotted down the five words piquing my interest.
“Everything is birthed through discomfort.” These words are too important to forget.
Having experienced four miscarriages and four natural childbirths, I remember well the dreaded discomfort of the birthing process. New birth is messy. New birth is painful. New birth is overwhelming, beyond our control.
I wonder, “Does spiritual rebirth follow the same principles?”
Now there was a prominent religious leader among the Jews named Nicodemus, who was part of the sect called the Pharisees. One night he discreetly came to Jesus and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one performs the miracle signs that you do, unless God’s power is with him.”
Jesus answered, “Nicodemus, listen to this eternal truth: Before a person can even perceive God’s kingdom, they must first experience a rebirth.”
Nicodemus said, “Rebirth? How can a gray-headed man be reborn? It’s impossible for anyone to go back into the womb a second time and be reborn!”
Jesus answered, “I speak an eternal truth: Unless you are born of water and the Spirit, you will never enter God’s kingdom. For the natural realm only gives birth to things that are natural, but the spiritual realm gives birth to supernatural life!
“You shouldn’t be amazed by my statement, ‘You all must be born from above!’ For the Spirit-Wind blows as it chooses. You can hear its sound, but you don’t know where it came from or where it’s going. So it is the same with those who are Spirit-born!” (John 3:3-8, TPT).
The footnotes for verse eight fascinate me.
- “The word for ‘blow’ can also be translated ‘breathe.’ The word for ‘sound’ can be translated ‘voice.’ And the same word for ‘Spirit’ can also mean ‘wind.’ If our new birth is so mysterious, how much more will be the ways of living each moment by the movement of the Holy Spirit?”
- “One can understand how confused Nicodemus was, for he took everything at face value and couldn’t see a deeper meaning.”
- “The Spirit moves you as he chooses, and you hear his voice, but you don’t know where he came from or where he goes.” The Aramaic is so rich and multilayered in this passage. Perhaps it could be paraphrased as “The wind, the breath, and the Spirit are moved by mysterious moods and in their own wonderful ways. When you feel their touch and hear their voices, you know they are real, but you don’t understand how they flow and move over the earth.”
- “The same mysterious way is the way of everyone reborn by wind, breath, and Spirit.”
“Everything is birthed through discomfort.” It seems spiritual rebirth is also saturated with discomfort. Messy. Painful. Overwhelming. Beyond our control. Confusion, lack of understanding, and a mammoth sense of mystery – these experiences seem to mark the process of being reborn. “The wind, the breath, and the Spirit are moved by mysterious moods and in their own wonderful ways,” we do well to remember. “When you feel their touch and hear their voices, you know they are real, but you don’t understand how they flow and move over the earth.” As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things (Ecclesiastes 11:5, NIV).
Since birth itself is so mysteriously uncomfortable, will we be able to tolerate the discomfort of being reborn every day, living each moment completely dependent upon God’s unpredictable, uncontrollable Spirit?
…Sue…
