Growing like a baby

“Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow” 1 Peter 2:2

Hi everyone, this is a big hello from me and Mona to you all. It has been a few months since camp, the days are getting darker and it is almost bonfire night! For Mona and I, we are busy getting ready for a big change in our lives as we are expecting our first child in February and we are not the only helpers who are expecting (or have just had) babies in the next few months!

Every week we get emails from very helpful websites telling us what to expect in this week of the pregnancy and how big our baby is now. They have an unusual way of describing how big the baby should be though! To help us understand they compare the baby size to a fruit. So in the early days it was the size of a seed, then later it becomes the size of a blueberry, then a raspberry etc. Some of these descriptions were a bit strange and really tested my knowledge of fruit! 

For example, is a passion fruit really much different to a large plum? Some of them were really surprising, like the week when the baby apparently turned from the size of a grapefruit to the size of an apple. Surely a grapefruit is bigger than an apple?! Has our baby shrunk?! But after a few months it is becoming obvious that our baby is definitely growing fast!

Once they are born it does not slow down much! We have neighbours who have just had a baby about 3 months ago and I am sure that baby must have doubled in size in the last few weeks! 

How to grow as Christians...

In the Bible, Peter compares the growth of a baby to the way that we should be growing as Christians. God wants us to grow in our Christian lives and to really grow fast! But how do we grow? 

Well, how does a baby grow? It drinks milk, and lots of it! And if it doesn’t get it’s milk then everybody knows about it! 

Peter uses this example to show what our appetite should be for our spiritual food, the Bible. As the baby longs for the milk, so we should long to read God’s word. This is the only way that we will grow as Christians. The more that we spend with the Lord in prayer and reading his word, so the more we will grow in our Christian lives. 

The best way to do that is to make sure that we get into really good habits, just like we do at camp in our quiet times. To spend time every day in a set routine of prayer and reading the Bible is a great way to guarantee to grow spiritually and is something that all the helpers could not recommend enough. There is an old chorus that puts it like this: ‘read your Bible, pray every day, if you want to grow’.

How amazing would it be if we could all double or triple in size (spiritually) by the time of camp next year? :) 

“But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 3:18

Much love,

Al