Two months ago, I turned 27 years old. Two months ago, I also found out that I am going to be a father. Holy fear has taken on a new definition for me. When we first found out, the two days that followed felt like one long, drawn out heart attack. Since then, I have settled into a cathartic blend of fear and excitement, flavored by the quiet disbelief that in less than 6 months my life, as I now know it, will have changed forever. My relationship with my wife will have changed forever. From here on out, we will no longer be simply a couple, but parents. A family. Unbelievable.
I can already tell that this journey will teach me more about the character and nature of God than I have ever known. As I contemplate this new life, even now taking shape in amazing ways, through all the fear and doubts and practical complications, one feeling wells up to consume all others... Love. It is such a bizarre realization to know that there is a being, a person, who is as of yet non-existent in tangible form, but who nonetheless will uncontrollably draw forth from you the deepest manifestations of care, concern, and self-sacrifice. This person hasn't even set foot in the world yet, but I already know that I love them in such a way that I cannot help but give everything for them.
As powerless as a man hurtled downstream by a rushing river current, I know that this end is unavoidable. Their very act of being compels my very essence to love them at a level deeper than I have ever felt. It's not even really a choice; it is the very character, the ontological essence, of our ever-developing relationship itself. I Already worry for this child; about their health and happiness and about the choices they will make in life. I worry about providing for them; giving them all that I can to enable them unto fullest life. I concern myself even with their relationship with God, their creator. What holy fear it is to bring a free-willed being into the world!
And I wonder, in all of this, if this is not the manner in which God relates to us. Setting out in the act of creation, out of the overflow of love within Godself, did God know that, as the Father, he could not help but love that which he was about to bring into existence? Did he know that, compelled by the rushing river of his own nature and essence, he would unavoidably be driven to give all of Himself in love for these people? Did he know, at the foundation of creation, that he was going to die in order that we might have life?
I believe he did. God knew, because God knows what love is. God IS love. In a manner deeper than we will ever know, God understands the way in which love compels; that to embrace love is to give oneself, even unto death. I imagine that it wasn't even really a choice; at least not in the manner that we understand choice... It is who God IS; a lover, and the Father, and hence, the Savior. Breathtaking.
