There is no question about it, having a baby changes you. Samuel is our third child, so going into this I felt like a pro but once again, my world has been messed up in all the right ways. For those of you I may not know well, I’m a creature of habit and perhaps more so than most. I get the same thing at the restaurants I go to because I don’t like to mess with a good thing. I have my morning quiet time in the same way every day. I basically work out the same every day. I fall into a rhythm and then pretty much go into autopilot. While others may accuse me of being boring or unoriginal, I just think I know what I like (-;

Then came little Samuel. He’s only 2 days old and already I feel like God is using him to change me for the better. A baby is anything but predictable. Sure, they pee, they poop, they cry, sleep and then repeat, but there is a lot more to it than that. Instantaneously you love someone so much and yet, there is so much you can’t do for them. Sammy has had some issues in his first couple days and as his dad, all I want to do is just fix it for him. I hate this slow progress thing. The name of the game in the hospital is to affect the variables you can affect and then basically let God do his thing. For a control freak like myself, this process is ridiculously painful. I’m one of the least patient people on the planet. I want everything and I want it 5 minutes ago! I’m trying to work on it, but my wife would probably tell you I haven’t made much progress in this arena. I’m all about finding the shortest possible distance between two points and hightailing it down that path.

A baby really has a way of propelling you to trust God. There is someone you care deeply about who is totally helpless and you cannot control them. It makes you stop and think about the frailty of life and how much of an illusion control is. When you really think about it, aren’t we all in the same position as a little baby? Sure, we can do all kinds of things for ourselves. We have our thinking, our reasoning, our resources, family and friends. Obviously there are a lot of differences between us and Samuel, but let’s take a deeper look. There is so much of life beyond the realm of our control. Every time we get into a vehicle, we can’t control what other drivers do. One swerve or bad decision from a passing motorist has the potential to totally alter the trajectory of our lives. I’m no scientist, but this idea is also prevalent when considering our biological makeup. There are many biological processes at work in our bodies that we can easily take for granted. Were any number of those processes to stop or go haywire, our idea of control would quickly fly right out the window. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point.

Having a baby messes you up in all the right ways. If you allow it to, it fundamentally alters your heart posture in relation to God. You realize that you need to trust God with your baby because as much as you want to, you simply cannot do everything for him. This dynamic also has the ability to make you reflect upon your own helplessness before God and cry out to him as a child would. Perhaps this gets us one step closer to the dependence that God designed for us to live in when it comes to our relationship with him.

So Samuel, in 2 days you’ve already taught me more than I’ve taught you. Thank you, buddy. I hope that as your life progresses, I can be a dad who parents and leads on his knees recognizing that we were all created to live in total dependence and reliance on God.