Are you still a child of God?

For years I thought of myself as a child of God, a daughter of the most wonderful father in the world. He looked after me, cared for me, and guided my life. My responsibility was to be grateful and obedient, a dutiful daughter.
Over the years I studied medicine and went to work as a humanitarian doctor in a Zapotec village in the mountains of southern Mexico. I delivered over 700 babies to Indian women, keeping watch over them before and after the birth. During these hours I searched scripture to see what it said about birthing practices. I found Ezekiel 16: 4-7 which talked about newborns. “On the day you were born your umbilical cord was not cut, you weren’t bathed and cleaned up, you weren’t rubbed with salt, you weren’t wrapped in a baby blanket. No one cared a fig for you. No one did one thing to care for you tenderly in these ways. You were thrown out into a vacant lot and left there, dirty and unwashed – a newborn nobody wanted. And then I came by. I saw you all miserable and bloody. Yes, I said to you, lying there helpless and filthy. ‘Live! Grow up like a plant in the field!’ And you did. You grew up.”
As a person who had cut hundreds of umbilical cords, washed the blood from hundreds of newborns and swaddled them for their mothers, I loved reading this passage. Even more moving for me was the fact that I had found two little girls thrown away by their blood kin and had spoken the same words, “Live! Grow up in the shelter of my love!”

But eventually I read the rest of the passage, up to verse 14. “You grew tall and matured as a woman, full-breasted, with flowing hair. But you were naked and vulnerable, fragile and exposed. I came by again and saw you, saw that you were ready for love and a lover. I took care of you, dressed you and protected you. I promised you my love and entered the covenant of marriage with you. I, God, the Master, gave my word. You became mine. I gave you a good bath, washing off all that old blood, and anointed you with aromatic oils. I dressed you in a colorful gown and put leather sandals on your feet. I gave you linen blouses and a fashionable wardrobe of expensive clothing. I adorned you with jewelry. I placed bracelets on your wrists, fitted you out with a necklace, emerald rings, sapphire earrings, and a diamond tiara. You were provided with everything precious and beautiful; with exquisite clothes and elegant food, garnished with honey and oil. You were absolutely stunning. You were a queen! You became world famous; a legendary beauty brought to perfection by my adornments.” Taken from “The Message” by Eugene Peterson.

This visit came about 15 years after the first visit, when God rescued the newborn from the trash heap. The child is a baby no longer, but equally in need of protection and washing from the blood, in this case the blood that signifies maturity and readiness for love. In the first visit the helpless child receives the care, cleansing and breathe of life unwittingly, involuntarily. In the second visit, God as lover woos his bride, bathing, feeding, dressing and adorning her to his heart’s content, and the beloved woman enters into a covenant with Him. She is now old enough to receive his gifts and respond to his love. She knows and senses that He wants more than the gratitude and obedience of a dutiful daughter. She knows (and you know if you are a man) that the relationship involves intimacy, sharing thoughts and dreams, planning and planting, crying and laughing, enjoying each other and working to carry out His plans.
But how many of us are dutiful wives as we were dutiful daughters? When He comes whispering our name do we respond “of course I love you, aren’t I washing and cleaning and ironing your shirts?” In the night when He murmurs in our ear, “beloved, come away to spend time with Me,” do we respond as the beloved in Song of Solomon, “But I’m in my nightgown – do you expect me to get dressed? I’m bathed and in bed – do you want me to get dirty?” I have a hard day’s work tomorrow – do you want me to be sleep deprived? You know you have my full attention for 30 minutes during worship on Sunday, isn’t that enough?”
Well, no, it isn’t enough for Him. He is a jealous lover and He wants more, He wants a passionate bride who rejoices in her gifts, her wonderful position as a covenant bride, who has heard His yearning over the lost and sick and dying and whose greatest joy is to be his hands and feet and voice in this world. He longs for a bride who welcomes His presence at all times, who has nothing better to do than to listen to His voice and hear His thoughts and speak His words.
Isaiah personally responded to God’s call by saying, “Here am I, send me”. But speaking for his people he had to confess in 26:17-18 “Like a woman having a baby, writing in distress, screaming her pain as the baby is being born, that’s how we were because of you, O God. We were pregnant full-term. We writhed in labor but bore no baby. We gave birth to wind. Nothing came of our labor. We produced nothing living. We couldn’t save the world.” God’s purpose in visiting us, in the precious moments of intimacy, is to plant His seed, His vision, in us. How many times have we caught a glimpse of something special that He wants us to do when He touches our life? But how many times have we allowed that dream, that seed, to wither and die because it wasn’t convenient or practical or part of our life plan? “Yes, God,” we say, “keep visiting us and blessing us and giving us wonderful gifts. But don’t expect US to incubate your dreams, to give birth to your spiritual children, to labor and strain and cry out over the lost world. We want to keep playing as children instead of growing up.”

Are you still a child of God?