Nicodemus, listen to this eternal truth: You can perceive the kingdom realm of God, but you must first experience a rebirth. John 3:2-3
Listen to this Eternal Truth – The Rebirth Series – Part 3
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5
The time between your old-self and new beginning is a liminal space of incubation. Kind-of like Nicodemus’ walk through the night to a secret meeting with Jesus.
What do you do on the way? How do you frame your questions? Determine your destination? On your way from your hopes and desires to their reality, how do you prepare for what’s next when you’re not even sure what that is?
How do you prepare and bring on a (re)birth?
The thing about labor (physically giving birth) is that you can’t really speed it up, or slow it down. You have to “go with it” so to speak. The best advice I received when preparing for the births of my kids was this:
“Don’t fight it, or resist it. Don’t try to hurry it up or get it over with. Go with the flow of it. Breathe into it. Take each moment as it comes. Follow the movement of your body and your child.”
This advice stands even in emergencies… If it becomes apparent that your body needs help delivering a child, you go with it… you give yourself to the birth in whatever way it comes.
We can dismiss the opportunity for newness – ignore it and be distracted away from it. We can also overthink it, get too close to it to be objective and become obsessive instead.
Or, we can give ourselves to the process. Breathe into it. Take it one step at a time. Embrace the pain, and revel in the excitement. At the start of any ‘new beginning,’ there’s usually a litany of ideas and tasks and hopes and questions and ‘all.the.things' to think about and plan and do. But the important thing is to give yourself to the movement of it.
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Nicodemus journeyed through the night, carrying his questions and hopes and fears, adrenalin making his body bubble and float: he walked faster than he needed to, his breathing a rough mix of emotion, energy, and uncertainty. When he arrived at his secret meeting with Jesus, he walked through the door, and the words fell from his mouth like a waterfall:
“Master, we know that you are a teacher from God, for no one performs the miracle signs that you do, unless God’s power is with him.”
Did he say the words? All he could hear was his heart pounding in his chest.
“Nicodemus, listen to this eternal truth: You can perceive the kingdom realm of God, but you must first experience a rebirth.”
And then he felt it all go… everything he used to know.
Everything he had taught and believed to be true for the last 50 years as a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin slipped through his fingers. He gave himself to the unraveling somehow knowing that this man in front of him would be the only one who could wrap him back up again – wrapped in grace.
Rebirth.
Go to The Mystery of Grace – The Rebirth Series – Part 4
Written by Liz Milani
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