SPIT-UP


If you’ve been a parent one thing that you never forget, no matter how old your children are now, were those 5:00a.m., getting up with the rooster, feedings. Those little babies have a built-in alarm clock to let you know they are hungry. We pull them from their crib and sit down in a rocker and with one eye half way open give them what they want—their first meal of the day.

Now, at the end of the meal, you lift your child up and place him or her over your shoulder and gently rub or pat their back so they can burp and get all those air bubbles out of their little stomachs. Depending on how aggressive an eater your child was there tends to be a lot of air-swallowing taking place during those feedings. Sometimes they push off our shoulder looking intently into our eyes making us well-up with love for them only to be greeted with a good portion of the morning meal spit-up all over the two of you.  

Sometimes, I feel like I do the same thing to God. He has given me the greatest gift—Jesus, his son who died on the cross for me so I can have eternal life and live with purpose. In fact, God loves us so much that He calls us His children. That’s how John describes us in 1 John 3:1, where he says; “How very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!” He wants us to live in step with His desires, a life that is pleasing to Him. 

1 John 3:3 says, “All who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure.”

Because we are children of God, we should want to live a pure life as Jesus did—who is our example. But sometimes, I think we all spit up on God. He nurtures us, cares for us, delights in us and too often we simply pull away and throw it all right back in His face through our sin and disobedience.

When my children use to spit-up on me, my first response was to pull away, because honestly, it is disgusting and gross! After the event they usually were looking at me with eyes aglow and as wide-open as they can be and then a smile pops out and my heart just melted. So I’d smile back, clean them off and change their clothes, give them a big kiss, and do it all over again the next morning. That is what I believe God does with us. When we seek forgiveness He says, “You are already forgiven, my Son took your sin to the cross and nailed them there.” Then He picks us up in His arms, cleans us off and sends us out to try it again.

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