Baby Fat

What is cuter than a fat, smiling baby? I mean, seriously, all those giggles and dimples and squishiness? Babies are supposed to have a good amount of fat on them for the growth that will continue exploding through their little frames. I was talking about this recently with my sister. And she mentioned that, in her career, she has told her co-workers, "Babies are allowed to be fat." Namely, that young members in that field will not know things.

I've made it almost all the way through Numbers in my devotions, and I noticed the "babies" (the fledgling nation of Israel) being "allowed" to be fat. In Exodus, God delivers them from slavery in Egypt by His mighty hand, and leads them to the Red Sea. But Pharaoh changes his mind and pursues them. When they are cornered, they cry out, "What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?" And they are not reprimanded. Instead God parts the Sea and miraculously delivers them from Pharaoh and his army. Then just a couple chapters later, they get to a place with bitter water. Imagine walking through the heat and dust of the desert, then arriving at an oasis, only to find that the water is undrinkable. So the Israelites grumbled. Again they are not reprimanded, and God fixes the water. Later they complain that they are hungry. God responds, not with a rebuke as we'd expect, (After all, this is the third time in just a couple months that they have complained about God's care-- or lack thereof-- for them.) but He sends them manna. And again, as they continued to wander through the wilderness, when they complain of their thirst, God provides water from a rock. It is not until their continued unbelief leads them to make and worship the golden calf that God punishes them. However, in Numbers their unbelief and grumbling are consistently met with chastisement. Plagues, fire from heaven, the earth opening and swallowing up whole groups of people, serpents. It's as though God is saying, "You are not babies anymore! Grow up!"

So if you are a baby in the faith, be encouraged that God will display His faithfulness to you to help you to grow. Pray, read the Word, be engaged and involved in a local gospel-centered church, and GROW! And if you are NOT a baby in the faith, please don't act like one. Remember God's faithfulness! Pray! Read the Word! Be engaged and involved in a local gospel-centered church! AND GROW UP!

(And just for the record, I've been so convicted as I've been reading this about how often I grumble. And refuse to "act my age". And in short, act JUST LIKE the Israelites did, in spite of the fact that I have the indwelling Spirit. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:57-58)

"To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast? For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little."
Isaiah 28:9-10
 
About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
Hebrews 5:11-14
 
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation-- if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
1 Peter 2:1-3
 
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Ephesians 4:15-16