Pain and Birth

What a beautiful day today has been already! It's only noon, and it's pouring rain outside, but cozy inside my apartment, I have enjoyed a very relaxing Sunday morning. I regret not being able to go to church, but I have to stay on campus for RA duty, and so on weeks like these, I make the best and have my own little church service. It is a good chance to work through some of the Piper sermons I have downloaded, play some guitar and listen to my cd of hymns. And pray and write.

I have started reading The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis. I have read some of it in the past, but it is one of those books that require deep thought of the logical analysis sort, so I can't just bring it along to read on the bus. I am having to go back and re-read everything I already read, but it is easier this time than it was last year. Hopefully I'll be able to plug along through it. My friend Jordan read it, and he said it's worth the work, and knowing Lewis, it will be so.

The other day while sitting in a classroom listening to my college pastor teach about something pretty unrelated to the Calvinism/Arminianism debate (although, really, how far could it be? Everything is tied pretty closely to that, it seems, haha), it occurred to me that the analogy of converting being a rebirth is a pretty cool way to explain total depravity.

Bear with me.

Just as the fetus in the mother's womb is helpless, so we are helpless before God. Christ told Nicodemus that to enter the kingdom of God, one must be "reborn." But what is birth? Does the baby have a CHOICE of coming out of the comfort of the dark and fluid womb? I'd imagine that birth must be a fairly painful and traumatic experience for the newborn - to be "forced" out of something they thought "best" is a shock to the system. But the infant is MADE for life! It has lungs designed to breathe air and lips and a tongue for talking and eating. It has legs to run and play, it has a capacity to be a living creature.

In the same way, man was designed for life with God. Does it seem cruel and too-authoritarian of the mother's body to force the fetus to come into the light and know life? Not at all, because that was the purpose from the start. Nor is it cruel or overly authoritarian for a God of all power to "force" (for lack of a better word) His children into the life through a new birth. It is not because of a desire we have to know that life (Rom. 9:16), but because of his mercy.

I don't know... still thinking about it... help me refine it, if you will. Point out flaws and then help me see what is true and what is imperfect about the analogy. I know there exist imperfections, but if you hadn't picked up on it, I *love* analogies and allegories, and discussing them is oh-so-fun and enriching.