Scripture Baby Quotes

My father reminds me that according to Midrash - the ever-evolving commentary upon the Hebrew scriptures - when you arrive in the world as a baby, your hands are clenched, as though to say, "Everything is mine. I will inherit it all." When you depart from the world, your hands are open, as though to say, "I have acquired nothing from the world.

There is a beautiful moment in the bible when the prophet Elijah feels God’s resence. The Scriptures say that a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart, but God was not in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. It was the whisper of God. Today we can hear the whisper where we least expect it; in a baby refugee and in a homeless rabbi, in crack addicts and displaced children, in a groaning creation.

Observe," she said. "You put the diaper under here, and around there, and you—if you had one—pin the whole thing ogether. Now you try it." "Not me," he objected. "How about a paper clip? Or a paper staple?" "I don't see what's bothering you," Meg said. "She's only a little girl." "I did notice." "And, if you follow scripture, was created after Adam." "And—what's your point?" "Being the second model, women turned out considerably better than men. God, when She did this second work, you'll note, got all the plumbing inside.

And so you carried life for the world, Mary, as you fled, to protect that very life from threats of death. Joining the world's mass of displaced people you became Refugee, Alien, Immigrant, Homeless, and settled in a foreign land-- the only place to safely nurture your fragile dream. Like so many other women who flee violence, clutching their babies, you crossed the border defining you a stranger, dependent on foreign aid, welfare and hand-outs-- the charity of others-- to feed the Son of God.

Indeed, it is worth noting that most uses of the words "heaven" or "heavenly" in the New Testament bear little relation to the meanings we have so unscripturally attached to them. For us, heaven is an unearthly, humanly irrelevant condition in which bed-sheeted, paper-winged spirits sit on clouds and play tinkly music until their pipe-cleaner halos drop off from boredom. As we envision it, it contains not one baby's bottom, not one woman's breast, not even one man's bare chest - much less a risen basketball game between glorified "shirts" and "skins." But in Scripture, it is a city with boys and girls playing in the streets; it is buildings put up by a Department of Public Works that uses amethysts for cinder blocks and pearls as big as the Ritz for gates; and indoors, it is a dinner party to end all dinner parties at the marriage supper of the Lamb. It is, in short, earth wedded, not earth jilted. It is the world as the irremovable apple of God's eye.

Ode, Elegy, Aubade, Pslam" 1 The songbird that escapes from a burning house will build its nest in the shape of a cage. 2 This is one thing we know: song begs for the places that make it grow from seed to starling, 3 places that put the heart’s hemlock in an empty rowboat and heave it from the shore. 4 We only praise what we cannot keep: violin strings berried with rain, teacups overflowing with brandywine, radios sickened with static. 5 Glass tossed out with the tide will come back smoother and stranger, but never to the same person. 6 This is something we want to know. The woman in love never touches her ears. 7 The man in his house is always lost without her. 8 Morning pulls light from the dark like a boy hoisting a trout from the lake by its clean, pink gills. 9 When the woman escapes from a burning house she will know the path of the wind, 10 how it writes its scripture in peach blossoms blown into a baby’s empty pram. 11 She’ll feel it compose its words against her body, against the night, against the water, in an endless, artless psalm.

We equate blessing with a new job, a new house, a banner year for our company, a big bonus at work, a new baby, a clean medical report, or an acceptance into the college of our choice. In our Western mindset—conditioned by the affluence surrounding us—God’s blessings are pleasant and enjoyable. When the opposite happens—suffering, hardship, loss of job, loss of health, financial strain—“blessing” isn’t usually the first word off our lips. As we cope with trials, we wonder if we’re being punished by God. We question if we’ve somehow merited God’s judgment. And we fervently pray that the burdens will be removed. In God’s economy, blessings are radically different than our American perception. This is the second counterintuitive principle we learn from Scripture: persecution means you’re blessed, not cursed.

When we are needy Christ does His best work, but be warned. Someone, maybe even some well-meaning soul, is going to tell you, “Don’t worry. God will never give you more than you can handle.” I double-dog-dare you to find that in the scriptures. The closest you can come is found in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” This talks about an escape from temptation; it does not say that you will not be faced with more than you can handle. The mother whose baby is born and dies, the father who loses his eyesight in a construction accident and can no longer provide for his family, the child who hurries home from school every day hoping that his mother hasn’t yet succumbed to the cancer that he sees ravish her body day by day . . . all of these souls have more than they can handle—on their own. But with Christ as their companion on the journey through life—and only with Christ—all things are possible. Without Him, we fail no matter how far we manage on our own. We can never cross over without Christ and His all-access Atonement.

For this reason we should not try, through contempt or arrogant zeal, to attain this kind of contemplative knowledge prematurely; rather we should practice the commandments of Christ in due order and proceed undistracted through the various stages of contemplation previously discussed. Once we have purified the soul through patient endurance and with tears of fear and inward grief, and have reached the state of seeing the true nature of things, then - initiated spiritually by the angels - the intellect spontaneously attains this contemplative knowledge. But if a person is presumptuous and tries to reach the second stage before having reached the first, then not only will he fail to conform to God's purpose, but he will provoke many battles against himself, particularly through speculating about the nature of man, as we have learnt in the case of Adam. Those still subject to the passions gain nothing by attempting to act or think as if they were dispassionate: solid food is not good for babies, even though it is excellent for the mature (cf. Heb. 5:14). Rather they should exercise discrimination, yearning to act and think like the dispassionate, but holding back, as being unworthy. Yet when grace comes they should not reject it out of despair or laziness, neither should they presumptuously demand something prematurely, lest by seeking what has its proper time before that time has come, as St John Klimakos says, they fail to attain it in its proper time, and fall into delusion, perhaps beyond the help of man or the Scriptures.

By becoming the aggressor in sharing the good news of Christ with everyone in earshot, I became the one doing the influencing for good rather than the one being influenced for evil. I deduced that my Christianity is not about me but about Christ living through me. Jesus Christ represents everything that is truly good about me. Oddly enough, it started with a prank telephone call when I was seventeen. As I was studying the Bible one night, I had just said a prayer in which I asked God for the strength to be more vocal about my faith. All of a sudden, the phone rang and I answered. “Hello?” I asked. No one answered. “Hello?” I asked again. There was still silence on the other end. I started to hang up the phone, but then it hit me. “I’m glad you called,” I said. “You’re just the person I’m looking for.” Much to my surprise, the person on the other end didn’t hang up. “I want to share something with you that I’m really excited about,” I said. “It’s what I put my faith in. You’re the perfect person to hear it.” So then I started sharing the Gospel, and whoever was on the other end never said a word. Every few minutes, I’d hear a little sound, so I knew the person was still listening. After several minutes, I told the person, “I’m going to ask you a few questions. Why don’t you do one beep for no and two beeps for yes? We can play that game.” The person on the other end didn’t say anything. Undaunted by the person’s silence, I took out my Bible and started reading scripture. After a few minutes, I heard pages rustling on the other end of the phone. I knew the person was reading along with me! After a while, every noise I heard got me more excited! At one point, I heard a baby crying in the background. I guessed that the person on the phone was a mother or perhaps a babysitter. I asked her if she needed to go care for her child. She set the phone down and came back a few minutes later. I figured that once I started preaching, she would hang up the phone. But the fact that she didn’t got my adrenaline flowing. For three consecutive hours, I shared the message of God I’d heard from my little church in Luna, Louisiana, and what I’d learned by studying the Bible and listening to others talk about their faith over the last two years. By the time our telephone call ended, I was out of material! “Hey, will you call back tomorrow night?” I asked her. She didn’t say anything and hung up the phone. I wasn’t sure she would call me back the next night. But I hoped she would, and I prepared for what I was going to share with her next. I came across a medical account of Jesus’ death and decided to use it. It was a very graphic account of Jesus dying on a cross. Around ten o’clock the next night, the phone rang. I answered it and there was silence on the other end. My blood and adrenaline started pumping once again! Our second conversation didn’t last as long because I came out firing bullets! I worried my account of Jesus’ death was too graphic and might offend her. But as I told her the story of Jesus’ crucifixion--how He was sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate, beaten with leather-thonged whips, required to strip naked, forced to wear a crown of thorns on His head, and then crucified with nails staked through His wrists and ankles--I started to hear sobs on the other end of the phone. Then I heard her cry and she hung up the phone. She never called back. Although I never talked to the woman again or learned her identity, my conversations with her empowered me to share the Lord’s message with my friends and even strangers. I came to truly realize it was not about me but about the power in the message of Christ.

A similar theological—and particularly ecclesiological—logic shapes the Durham Declaration, a manifesto against abortion addressed specifically to the United Methodist Church by a group of United Methodist pastors and theologians. The declaration is addressed not to legislators or the public media but to the community of the faithful. It concludes with a series of pledges, including the following: We pledge, with Cod’s help, to become a church that hospitably provides safe refuge for the so-called “unwanted child” and mother. We will joyfully welcome and generously support—with prayer, friendship, and material resources—both child and mother. This support includes strong encouragement for the biological father to be a father, in deed, to his child.27 No one can make such a pledge lightly. A church that seriously attempted to live out such a commitment would quickly find itself extended to the limits of its resources, and its members would be called upon to make serious personal sacrifices. In other words, it would find itself living as the church envisioned by the New Testament. William H. Willimon tells the story of a group of ministers debating the morality of abortion. One of the ministers argues that abortion is justified in some cases because young teenage girls cannot possibly be expected to raise children by themselves. But a black minister, the pastor of a large African American congregation, takes the other side of the question. “We have young girls who have this happen to them. I have a fourteen year old in my congregation who had a baby last month. We’re going to baptize the child next Sunday,” he added. “Do you really think that she is capable of raising a little baby?” another minister asked. “Of course not,” he replied. No fourteen year old is capable of raising a baby. For that matter, not many thirty year olds are qualified. A baby’s too difficult for any one person to raise by herself.” “So what do you do with babies?” they asked. “Well, we baptize them so that we all raise them together. In the case of that fourteen year old, we have given her baby to a retired couple who have enough time and enough wisdom to raise children. They can then raise the mama along with her baby. That’s the way we do it.”28 Only a church living such a life of disciplined service has the possibility of witnessing credibly to the state against abortion. Here we see the gospel fully embodied in a community that has been so formed by Scripture that the three focal images employed throughout this study can be brought to bear also on our “reading” of the church’s action. Community: the congregation’s assumption of responsibility for a pregnant teenager. Cross: the young girl’s endurance of shame and the physical difficulty of pregnancy, along with the retired couple’s sacrifice of their peace and freedom for the sake of a helpless child. New creation: the promise of baptism, a sign that the destructive power of the world is broken and that this child receives the grace of God and hope for the future.29 There, in microcosm, is the ethic of the New Testament. When the community of God’s people is living in responsive obedience to God’s Word, we will find, again and again, such grace-filled homologies between the story of Scripture and its performance in our midst.

Greek men, on average, were more than ten years older than their brides, because Greeks had a shortage of marriageable women (sources suggest that girl babies were discarded more often than boys). Jewish men, however, were usually only a few years older than their wives; both genders assumed some adult responsibilities at puberty, but men would often work a few years so they could provide financial stability for marriage. Betrothal involved a financial agreement between families. It often lasted about a year; in conservative Galilean families the couple could not be together alone before the wedding, so Joseph may not have known Mary very well.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. - Luke 1:41

In the scripture, God promised Abraham that he would be the father of many nations. In the natural it was impossible. Abraham didn’t have one child. He was eighty years old. But God didn’t just give him the promise; God gave him a picture to look at. God said, “Abraham, go out and look at the stars--that’s how many descendants you will have.” I’ve read where there are six thousand stars in the Eastern sky where he was. It’s not a coincidence that there are six thousand promises in the scripture. God was saying, “Every promise that you can get a vision for, I will bring it to pass.” God told him also to look at the grains of sand at the seashore, because that was how many relatives he would have. Why did God give him a picture? God knew there would be times when it would look as if the promise would not come to pass, and Abraham would be discouraged and tempted to give up. In those times, Abraham would go out at night and look up at the sky. When he saw the stars, faith would rise in his heart. Something would tell him, “It’s going to happen, I can see it.” In the morning when his thoughts told him, “You’re too old, it’s too late, you heard God wrong,” he would go down to the beach and look at the grains of sand. His faith would be restored. Like Abraham, there will be times when it seems as if your dreams are not coming to pass. It’s taking so long. The medical report doesn’t look good. You don’t have the resources. Business is slow. You could easily give up. But like Abraham, you’ve got to go back to that picture. Keep that vision in front of you. When you see the key to your new house, the outfit for your baby, the tennis shoes for when you’re healthy, the picture frame for your spouse, the article inspiring you to build an orphanage, those pictures of what you’re dreaming about will keep you encouraged. God is saying to you what He said to Abraham: “If you can see it, then I can do it. If you have a vision for it, then I can make a way. I can open up new doors. I can bring the right people. I can give you the finances. I can break the chains holding you back.

WHENEVER YOU ARE FEELING SAD, I want you to anticipate feeling joyful again. This takes the sting out of your sorrow because you know it is only temporary. Sadness tends to duplicate itself along the timeline—convincing you that you’ll always be unhappy. But this is a lie! The truth is, all My followers have infinite Joy ahead of them, guaranteed throughout eternity! No one can take this away from you. Your path through this world has many ups and downs. Your down times are difficult, but they serve an important purpose. Pain and struggle help you change and grow stronger when you trust Me in the midst of adversity. Your troubles are comparable to a woman enduring labor pains. Her suffering is very real, and she may wonder how much longer she can bear the pain. However, this arduous struggle produces a wonderful result—a newborn baby. While you labor through your earthly struggles, keep your eyes on the promised reward: boundless Joy in heaven! Even now you can grow in awareness of My Presence, where there is fullness of Joy. “Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.”—JOHN 16:22 NKJV

How does this tie into the Biblical prophecies concerning the Daughter of Babylon? First, the Daughter of Babylon, as is seen in scripture, will fall because of its treachery in failing to support Israel, leading to the shedding of blood of many Israelites. Jeremiah says about the Daughter of Babylon in 51:49: “Babylon must fall because of Israel’s slain, just as the slain in all the earth have fallen because of Babylon.” Is the second part of this verse a reference to America’s role in leading the world towards acceptable and legalized abortion practices? Multiply over forty million abortions worldwide each year by the years since 1973. Over a billion babies in the world have died, in part, because of America’s ‘leadership’ in promoting abortion globally. What a gruesome legacy. Who else better deserves the title of ‘Mother of Abominations’?

The wicked snatch a widows baby from her breasts, taking the baby as a security loan. They condemn the innocent in its tribunals & release the guilty though bribery.

Or, if you read through the book of Isaiah, which was supposed to be one of Jesus’s favorite parts of the Jewish scripture, you will see (for example, in chapters 11 through 14) how Isaiah goes on and on about the revenge that is going to be taken on Babylon, for oppressing the Jewish people, and on other nations who are opposed to and practice different religions than that of “the one true God.” Once again, the women of Babylon and these other nations are going to be raped, the babies are going to have their heads bashed in, and all the men are going to be slaughtered. Over and over and over again, this is proclaimed, sung about in hymns almost, by the prophet Isaiah.

The Romance Some couples only live together as roommates, which is bad. All the wife does is just cook, take care of the house etc, all the husband does is provide for the house, act like the boss of the house ask for sex whenever he feels like it. Some even only ask for sex from their wife when they feel like it's time to have another baby and women thought it is taboo to ask their husbands for sex when they feel horny, whereas, some are shy to do so. Hmmm!! In some Marriages, there is nothing like gisting, romancing, going on dates, attending events together, praying together, studying the word together apart from the general family retreat. This has led many women to the arms of strange men, although that is not an excuse to commit adultery. It was even recorded in the Scripture that Father Isaac caressed his beloved wife Rebekah. Spoil each other with romance. Write love letters to your spouse and put them in his or her pocket or handbag

Christianity and Judaism originate from the same source, and that source is Egypt. Egyptian culture and religion had its source also, and that source was Ireland. Ireland’s Druidic tradition likewise had its source in the prediluvian civilizations of Atlantis and Lemuria. These facts come as something of a shock to readers who have received their education from conventional sources and who tend to accept on faith all that pours forth from the mouths and pens of so-called “historians” who believe themselves informed about the world of the past. Thankfully the insinuation that Christianity has little to do with the land and traditions of Egypt is refuted by many researchers. As Jewish scriptures record, and as accounts of the early life of Jesus admit, Egypt did play a part in the birth of Judeo-Christianity. In the Book of Exodus we read of the Chosen People being freed from oppression in Egypt; in the Nativity we read that Magi from Egypt visited the new born "Sun King" in Bethlehem, and that baby Jesus and his family took refuge in Egypt. Although Christianity was

6A day will come when the wolf will live peacefully beside the wobbly-kneed lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat; The calf and yearling, newborn and slow, will rest secure with the lion; and a little child will tend them all. 7Bears will graze with the cows they used to attack; even their young will rest together, and the lion will eat hay, like gentle oxen. 8-9Neither will a baby who plays next to a cobra’s hole nor a toddler who sticks his hand into a nest of vipers suffer harm. All my holy mountain will be free of anything hurtful or destructive, for as the waters fill the sea, The entire earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Eternal.

The scythe or sickle of Perseus was made from a hard stone and most Sumerian tools were made of flint; [some, like the sickles for cutting the barley were made simply of hard clay]. However, the sickle has a Khopesh-like shape and was referenced in the Rosetta Stone as the "sword". [The earliest known depiction of a Khopesh is from the Stele of Vultures, depicting King Eannatum of Lagash wielding the weapon]. And this very word means in the Semitic language, 'Lamb of Sacrifice'. So, not only were the sickle a pure Semitic tool for slaughtering the Aryan demons (e.g., Jewish Menorah, Hindu Manasa & Buddhist Mucalinda), it also symbolized the cleansing and purification of the Semitic heritage from the Aryan infiltration. That was not all what I have discovered so far; it turns out that the very etymological root of the word 'Gospel' in the Semitic tongue is derived from the word 'Naga' with the prefix of 'An-' added to it - signaling the opposing meaning therewith to undo the Aryan reversed Symbolism. Although the original Semitic word of 'Naga' means 'to save/deliver', the Aryan plagiarism and belligerent Symbolism against the Semitic tongue annexed the word to the point were the very same expression needed modification; this time real salvation was delivered from none other but God Himself through Scripture (i.e., The Gospel) and through delivering the blessed baby from the hands of satan - ushering thereby a new era of Prophecy.

Parenting “Aha!” Since God’s Word makes it clear that He alone is divine and He alone changes hearts, I knew I needed Him to help me parent differently. I knew I would have to parent with His goal in mind if I was going to be successful. Pleasing Him became my only focus that day. Nothing else mattered. This was the first truth I began to cling to in my desire to be a spiritual parent. This truth revealed to me that it was not my job to merely control my child’s behavior and by doing so somehow create a spiritual life for him or her. This was a real “Aha” for me. Nowhere in the Bible does God ask me to spend my days managing the deeds and actions of my child. Nowhere in Scripture am I warned that if I don’t “control” my child’s behavior, horrible things will happen. However, I have oftentimes assumed this role—and sometimes pursued it as an end in itself. After all, who doesn’t want children who behave beautifully at all times? For years I had naively assumed that as Christian parents we simply have babies, raise them in a Christian home, and then do our best as parents. We expose them to Christ and to God’s Word, we put them in the community of other believers, and then eventually … don’t they just choose to follow Him?

Promises of God “For the LORD your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.” ZEPHANIAH 3:17 NLT Look at all the promises packed into this one verse of scripture! God is with you. He is your mighty savior. He delights in you with gladness. He calms your fears with His love. He rejoices over you with joyful songs. Wow! What a bundle of hope is found here for the believer. Like a mother attuned to her newborn baby’s cries, so is your heavenly Father’s heart for you. He delights in being your Father. He knows when the storms of life are raging all around you. He senses your need to be held close and for your fears to be calmed. It is in those times that He is for you a Prince of Peace, a Comforter. He rejoices over you with joyful songs. Can you imagine that God loves you so much that you cause Him to sing? God sings over you. And the songs He sings are joyful. He loves you with an unconditional, everlasting love. Face this day knowing that your God is with you. He calms you. And He sings over you. You are blessed to be a daughter of the King. Father, thank You for loving me the way You do. You are all I need. Amen.

crawl over her form, slowly devouring her. Licking from her thigh to the bone of her hip, I spread sporadic open-mouthed kisses onto the warm flesh beneath me. I trail my tongue up her stomach, licking between her breasts until I reach her nipples. I suck and savor each of them, ensuring to bite the tips hard enough to leave them red and aching. Punishment for ever offering up this body to anyone but me, even if she tore down an entire holy institution for yours truly in the process. Finding her neck, I lick up the side, tasting the salty sheen of sweat lingering over her steady pulse. A soft moan escapes her, making the need to defile her an inescapable desire. “My sleeping beauty,” I murmur, my lips trailing up to her ear. “I will cleanse you from all your impurities.” Reciting the scripture, I bathe my baby in my scent again, drowning her in all things

The ability to conceive children is viewed as a God-given blessing throughout Scripture. Not all who follow Jesus will receive this blessing, but all Christians should celebrate the gift of new life and seek to create an environment that is caring and protective of babies, mothers, and families.

Hagar is the first person in Scripture who is given the honor of bestowing a name upon God. And the name she chooses? “The God who sees me.” After being sexually assaulted, forced to carry a baby, and then abandoned, never having her needs or wishes taken into account, being invisible and used to meet other people’s needs, God sees her. And being seen makes all the difference.

What will happen to that vast body of Christians who were told Christianity is a matter of personal wellness, a competitor in the market for Self-therapy, when these shaky foundations no longer hold? Joel Olsteen says heaven has a warehouse full of blessings with my name on them. The only reason I don't have them is because I don't believe hard enough. What will happen when I finally determine I'm not cut out for this Christianity thing because my faith just doesn't pass muster? If Ken Ham is to be believed, it's already too late. The next generation is "already gone" (see supra, page 114). These are the Millennials who have actuated in their twenties what was in their hearts when they were twelve, that is, Christianity was something best grown out of and left behind. They've made their choice, answered the questions. And of those who remain, one wonders what it portends that 44% of younger evangelicals support gay marriage. It shouldn't be too much of a stretch to observe this position has more to do with cultural trends than with serious Scriptural contemplation, or contemplation on any serious theological thought, but try telling them that. Not only would that require transcending the latest slogans, but it would require considering an authority above the dictates of one's Self, and that is heresy in the religion of Gnosticism. But nature has a way of being what it is despite people's attempts to deny or reject it, to say nothing of nature's God. Nature, for example, will have the final vote on the gay marriage issue. No matter how hard two men try, they will never ever make a baby. Nature won't allow that. And eventually people will begin asking what the point of marriage was in the first place. Oh yeah, because two certain types of people – biology calls them male and female – make babies. Or again, human nature will have the final vote on the progressive experiment in collectivist action, say, in health care, and if history is a guide, that vote won't end well for progressives. We truly are individuals, not the Borg. Finally, the law of economic gravity will soon kick in on our national debt as well, reminding us that what can't go on forever won't. Then the fun begins. History teaches that days of leisurely indulgence, the sort which has always begotten Gnosticism, are numbered. It's one thing to shake your fist at the world when living a comfortable existence. Boutique rebellion against Yaltabaoth's systems of control is always fun. It's another thing to be hungry and need a damn bite to eat, or to be cold, because "the system" was finally broken beyond repair. Right around then we hear a galloping sound in the distance. That's the four horsemen coming to do what they are appointed to do. Marantha. S. D. G.

Listen to a Trusted Voice The chances that we would be deceived by propaganda would diminish significantly if we spent as much time reading our Bibles as we do following the news. Scripture is a lens through which we see the world more clearly. Our ultimate authority is not a top cable news network or other major media outlet. We must look first and foremost to the one voice we can trust, Jesus Christ. God instructs us, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him” (Matthew 17:5). One of our pastors at The Moody Church was in the hospital with his wife for the birth of their first child. Suddenly, panic swept through the room when the baby’s shoulder was stuck in the birth canal. This young father became anxious. The doctor came over to him, looked him directly in the eyes, and said, “In a moment, this room will be filled with twenty people, and there will be a lot of buzz and activity. But just know this: We have been here before; we know what we are doing; and everything is going to be okay.” The father’s demeanor changed. Worry turned into hopeful anticipation. And yes, they knew what they were doing, and everything was okay. Their daughter arrived safe and sound. Today, when you don’t know who to trust in the cacophony of voices shouting for this point of view or another, listen to the voice that you know with certainty will always speak the truth. Before you turn to your smartphone in the morning, read God’s Word. Listen to His voice. “The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times” (Psalm 12:6). We are in a race, with people shouting all kinds of messages to us from the stands. And every runner seems to be headed in a different direction, arguing about where the finish line should be. We are distracted by varied opinions about who is in the race, who should win, and who will lose. Confusion runs rampant, and usually it’s the person who happens to have the loudest megaphone who is heard, though they may be shouting the wrong message. We need to remind ourselves that God knows the truth, and the closer we walk with Him, the more likely we will be kept from error. He assures us that in the end, “everything is going to be okay.

I shall tell you now and for no extra charge that “living in the present” seems to be the key component across every scripture, self-help book, and religious group I’ve encountered. To harmonize with life in each moment, not to make happiness contingent on any prospective condition. Not to be tormented by the past but to live in the reality of “now,” all else being a mental construct. Osho, Eckhart Tolle, Jesus, Buddha, Oprah—anyone who’s anyone who’s ever grown a beard or shaved their head or dropped out and looked back at the material world with a sage shake of the head, a knowing wag of the finger, and a beatific smile—are all saying “Snap out of it”; liberate yourself from the tyranny of egoic introspection. This is the seam of the self that consumerism can continually mine, the unrelenting inner voice that wants and fears, that attaches and rejects. The people in robes and beards want us to learn to live beyond it, to calmly watch the chattering ego like clouds moving across a perfect sky, to identify with the stillness that is aware of the voice, that hears the voice, not the voice itself. Well, that’s easy for them to say, all relaxed in their flowing robes, like giant, hairy babies, it’s extremely difficult, especially when that voice has such omnipresent external allies to rely on, whilst the very idea of a spiritual life has been marginalized and maligned. Perhaps this state needn’t be the product of strenuous esotericism; it’s possible that calm presence of mind is our natural state and our jittery materialism the result of constant indoctrination. Much as I love spirituality to be served up properly branded in a turban, dressed in curtains, the accoutrements are surely an aesthetic, not a prerequisite.

Young simply dismissed parts of the Genesis creation account as "baby stories" that should naturally be outgrown—this despite his frequent insistence on literally understood scripture. A free-flowing rendition of stenographic notes from an unpublished sermon of October 8, 1854 provides a useful example: When the Lord organized the world, and filled the earth with animal and vegetable life, then he created man ... . Moses made the Bible to say his wife was taken out of his side—was made of one of his ribs. As far as I know my ribs are equal on each side. The Lord knows If I had lost a rib for each wife I have, I should have had none left long ago ... . As for the Lord taking a rib out of Adam's side to make a woman of, it would be just as true to say he took one out of my side. "But, Brother Brigham, would you make it appear that Moses did not tell the truth?" No, not a particle more than I would that your mother did not tell the truth when she told you that little Billy came from a hollow toadstool. I would not accuse your mother of lying any more than I would Moses. The people in the days of Moses wanted to know things that [were] not for them, the same as your children do when they want to know where their little brother came from, and he answered them according to the level of their understandings, the same as mothers do their children.

Then again, he was born in the South, where babies drank Scripture with their mother’s milk. “I

But you’re a better singer, baby,” he said. “Then why won’t God let me have that success?” I asked. “I don’t understand what He wants from me.” At the mention of God, my dad slipped into preacher mode. “He is allowing you to go through this struggle so that He can build a strong foundation in you,” he said quietly. “So that when it comes time for you to have that success, you will appreciate it. And know how much work it takes. ‘If you remain in me and my words remain in you—’ ” “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you,” I said, finishing John 15:7 for him. You can take the girl out of youth group, but you can’t take youth group out of the girl. “That’s a beautiful promise, isn’t it?” he said. “Yes,” I sighed. The verse did minister to me, though I also knew my dad didn’t really think fulfillment resided solely in sticking to scripture. Otherwise we’d still be in Richardson, and I wouldn’t have to be working so hard to prove my worth. I started to hear voices when I was alone at night, waiting for the sleeping pill to kick in. Half asleep, I would examine myself for flaws in the mirror, and a mental chorus would weigh in. They were intrusive and so mean that I was really convinced Satan was behind them. “You’re never going to be good enough, Jessica. Look who your competition is.” “Could your zits be any bigger?” “What happened to your hair? It used to be so much thicker and longer.” “Do more sit-ups, fat ass.” These thoughts derailed me just as I had to work harder to sell the album. It should have been no different than back when I stood next to the stage at a small Texas rodeo, selling my very first album. Back then, I knew if I just kept at it, people would respond. But now I was running on fumes, then beating myself up for that, too. I was fully aware that I was being unreasonable with myself—I would even beat myself up over beating myself up—but like a lot of times in my life, just because I could name the problem didn’t mean I was ready to do anything to fix it. Looking back, I see how my anxiety amplified the very real pressures on me, but I didn’t have that perspective then.

Like many millennials, I had a conventional modern education, and it’s only with a lot of painful hindsight and introspection that I can see how deficient it was. Let me give you the biggest, and worst examples: If you asked me in my last year of high school to name five great musicians, I would have probably only got as far as Mozart and Beethoven before drawing a blank. If you asked me to name five great authors, I’d have mentioned Shakespeare and then groped in vain for anything else. If you’d asked me to name five great philosophers, I’m ashamed to say I wouldn’t even have got as far as Plato. If you’d asked me about the history of Western civilization, I maybe could have named the Roman Empire, but you couldn’t get me to tell you what actually happened while it was around. The one bright spot, I guess, was that I could name at least a single Saint, and recite a few lines of scripture. But this was because I grew up in a religious home, and had nothing to do with my education.

We know from the lives of the saints and from Holy Scripture that from their mother’s womb, children can sense the presence of God.

To try to understand the words, first and foremost, is a fool’s errand. That’s why everyone thinks Christian fundamentalists, or really any kind of religious fundamentalists, are wackjobs or idiots or both. What most Catholics understand, it seems intuitively, or perhaps because they were baptized as babies and already put on their path without much of a say, is that they are supposed to behave like actors; it’s about learning the lines, the cues, then feeling them, there in the church and also out in the world. That’s it. That’s how Christianity is supposed to work; it is based on feeling, not knowledge. That’s what it means to be a follower.

Let’s harness that energy and redirect it for the purpose of prayerfully listening to the nudge of your own life and calling. The point of this day is not necessarily to make your decision but to remember who you are. Even Jesus did not arrive on earth knowing who he was. He came as a baby, fully dependent. His parents had to teach him who he was, and then Jesus had to work it out with his Father. I realize this may be a strange thing to say, and maybe I’m treading on theological ground I know nothing about, but Scripture says everything Jesus did on earth was in total dependency on his Father. That includes knowing who he was. For forty days in the wilderness, he was tempted to act outside of his identity and yet he remained faithful to the call to be himself. He had to battle the critics (and sometimes his own friends and family) who thought he should be someone different: a king, a prophet, a military leader. He had to accept the true will of his Father, to die on the cross only three years into his ministry. What kept him moving forward was not success, ability, skill, or the consensus of the crowd. What kept him moving forward, what helped him to do his next right thing, was knowing that his Father was with him. And he could only remember that as he spent time alone with his Father. And so it goes for us. You need a time of remembering, of being, of knowing you are not alone. So schedule a listening day.

The poem was thirty handwritten pages, the way I wrote everything back then, obviously, since my long-standing dream of a typewriter was impossible to realize, and I reread the poem every day, I learned it by heart, or better said I caressed it, I checked in on it, I cleared the dust off of it every day as though it were a strange machine from another world, a machine that came, who knows how, through the mirror, into our own. I still have it, on the pieces of paper where I created it without erasing a letter, that summer when I turned twenty. It looks like an old piece of scripture, kept under a bell jar in a great museum, in controlled temperature and humidity. It too is an artifact; I have surrounded myself with them until I feel like a god with a thousand arms in the middle of a mandala: my baby teeth, the threads from my navel, my pale pigtails, the black-and-white photos of my childhood. My eyes as a child, my ribs as an adolescent, my women from much later. The sad insanity of my life.