The Full Life

I was recently talking to my best friend whose wife is scheduled to give birth this weekend. They have one son already and are excited to bring a new son into their family. It brought back memories of each time we brought a new child into the family. Owen was almost two when Ellis was born. I can remember so vividly being so excited yet so nervous about how it would change our family dynamic. We had only had one child in our family so far. He had gotten all of our attention and love. How would this new child change us? One thing I knew for sure was that it was going to be great. We knew even though the change was scary and emotional for us it was going to be great. I can remember talking to Margaret Ellen about my excitement and also being so scared yet knowing it didn’t really make sense to be scared because I knew our family was going to be much better adding a new son to the family. I remember feeling the same way again when we were going to welcome Jack into the family. I was so excited to be adding another son to the family yet also nervous about our family dynamic changing even though I knew it would be better.

I look back now at those times of excitement and nervousness and can’t imagine my life without any of our boys. I knew it would be this way. I knew I would love the new dynamic each brought to the family. Yet, even though I knew it was going to be better for us it still was nerve wracking stepping into a new family dynamic.

I think that following God can be just like this. We can be so excited about our future with God. We can be excited about the path he is leading us down. Yet we also can have some hesitancy. We can have some nervousness. The problem is when we let that nervousness keep us from doing what we need to do.

While God has never promised us an easy life for following Him, He has promised us a full life. In John 10 Jesus tells His disciples that He is the good shepherd. That as sheep we need to listen to the voice of the good shepherd not the thief. He says in verse 10, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” We know that if we follow Jesus it will be tough and scary at times. Fully listening to the Spirit and following where He leads can be frightful. Yet we know that it is worth it. We know that once we go down that path we will be thankful and won’t be able to imagine our lives being lived any other way. It can be hard to have the faith we need to step out in faith and do it, but once we do we will be living the full life that Jesus promised us and there is nothing better than that. We won’t be able to imagine our lives without Jesus.

Joel Harper