{"id":2812,"date":"2019-09-25T08:56:25","date_gmt":"2019-09-25T12:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/?p=2812"},"modified":"2019-09-25T08:56:25","modified_gmt":"2019-09-25T12:56:25","slug":"first-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/2019\/09\/25\/first-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"First Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><strong>Romans\u00a0<a dir=\"ltr\">8:14-17<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\n<em><strong>The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God\u2019s children.(Romans 8:16)<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<div>A friend stopped me the other day with some exciting news and then spent 10 minutes describing for me the first steps of her 1-year-old nephew.\u00a0<em>He could walk!<\/em>\u00a0Later I realized how bizarre we might have sounded to an eavesdropper. Most people can walk. What was the big deal?<\/div>\n<div>It struck me that childhood provides a quality of\u00a0<em>specialness<\/em>\u00a0that nearly vanishes for the rest of life. Thinking about our treatment of children gave me further appreciation for the fact that God chooses the word picture of \u201cchildren\u201d to describe our relationship with Him. The New Testament announces that we are God\u2019s children, with all the rights and privileges of worthy heirs (Rom.\u00a0<a dir=\"ltr\">8:16-17<\/a>). Jesus (the \u201cone and only\u201d Son of God) came, we\u2019re told, to make possible our adoption as sons and daughters in God\u2019s family.<\/div>\n<div>I imagine God views each halting step forward in my spiritual \u201cwalk\u201d with the eagerness of a parent watching a child take that very first step.<\/div>\n<div>Perhaps when the secrets of the universe are finally revealed, we will learn an underlying purpose of watching children grow. It may be that God has granted us these times of specialness to awaken us to His infinite love. Of the fullness of that love, our experiences here on earth are mere glimpses.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><em><strong>PRAYER<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n<em><strong>Loving heavenly Father, increase our awareness of Your love for us and Your delight in us so we can show the world the difference You make in our lives.Amen.<\/p>\n<p>THOUGHT FOR THE DAY<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n<em><strong>You are loved.<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><em><strong>Christian Education Forum, Diocese of NAE of the Mar Thoma Church<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Romans\u00a08:14-17 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God\u2019s children.(Romans 8:16) A friend stopped me the other day with some exciting news and then spent 10 minutes&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reflections"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/Romans8-14-17.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2812"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2814,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2812\/revisions\/2814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/detroitmarthoma.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}