Why God Went Through With It

  In about five weeks (give or take two weeks) I will be responsible for the needs of another human being.  This is going to be quite a change of pace for me.  To be honest I have never had to be responsible for another person's well being before.  I have been in charge of a lot of teenagers and elementary school kids over the past seven years, but at the end of the day I could always take comfort in the fact that they were going to go home to their parents and I was going to go home to my Xbox360.

    I have always heard it said that something changes in a man when he discovers he is going to be a dad, but I did not really understand what that meant.  I still don't, but I am starting to get the idea.  I have to be honest, for awhile I have wondered why in the world anybody would want to have kids.  Why anyone would want to be responsible for a life that for the better part of twenty some years will at best acknowledge your existence, and at worst want nothing to do with you was something I simply could not comprehend.  That changed thirty seven weeks and five days ago.  That is when Aimee and I discovered that we were going to have a kid.  No, I did not change my mind over night, to be quite honest I was scared, and a little aggravated that it happened so soon.  Slowly and surely though God began to work on my heart.

    I have always struggled with the question of why God created us.  If he knew that it was all going to go horribly wrong, if he knew that we were going to spit in his face, pretend like we don't know him, use his name to explain our frustration with things, and just generally rebel against him, why go through all that aggravation?

    I do not claim to have all the answers to that question, but here is what I am starting to realize.  Last night Aimee and I took a tour of the hospital.  It was a very cool experience because we were able to see where we needed to go and what was going to happen once we arrived.  The part I enjoyed the most though was the stop at the nursery.  Inside the nursery was one single baby boy who was not even an hour old yet.  As soon as our tour saw him everyone stopped, got very quite and just looked.  We did not know this boy, we did not even know his name.  All the kid did was squirm around and make funny noises but  all of us stared in awe at new life and at that moment I realized a little bit more why God went through with it, and why I am so excited about the birth of my son.

    None of us knew the boy in that nursery but we did know one truth, we were looking at potential.  This was a new life in the purest sense of the word.  He knew nothing of evil or good all he knew was the here and now.  I wonder if that is what God saw when he created the first man and the first women?  Did he see potential?  Sure he knew that they were going to mess up, rebel, cause pain and suffering but in the end they were still apart of him and they had potential.  Each of us has the potential to turn toward our father and say, "I love you and I'm ready to live life the way you designed it to be lived."  That is a choice we can make each and every day.

   So yes I am still nervous and scared, I have trepidation about doing things right and being the best dad I can be.  More than that though I am excited.  I am excited that in a few short weeks I will be holding in my hand pure potential.  A boy that could grow up and rebel, spit in my face, pretend he does not know me and go his own way.  If he does do that, it's ok because there is always the potential to turn the other way.  He could grow up and change the world, and God in is grace sees fit to let me be apart of that.  That is a very cool adventure to be apart of.