My son Cameron rolling around in the floor as a 9-month-old in 2001. Cameron recently graduated college with a 4.0 GPA, majoring in Construction Management, and served as president of his Sigma Chi fraternity. This photo serves as a great reminder that we grow both spiritually and physically.
The Baby Analogy
By Tim Webb
The Baby Analogy compares the relationship between a mother and her baby with that of God and his children. In the analogy, a baby is sitting on the floor experiencing suffering and pain, just like we do in life. His mother has gone down the hallway to use the restroom, but the baby does not understand why she disappeared into that strange room that makes the funny noises. With such a small range of understanding, he does not know if his mother will ever come back, or why she disappeared to begin with. To make matters worse, the baby is sitting in a dirty, wet diaper, and it’s hungry and ready for a nap. A small whimpering quickly turns into a full-on panic, as the baby communicates the only way he knows how, as he screams and cries with all the energy his little lungs can muster.
Suddenly, the baby sees his mother walking toward him, and feels a sense of relief. She picks him up and says in a warm tender voice, “Let’s get you out this dirty diaper and get you a warm bottle of milk. That’ll make you feel better! It’s going to be okay. You’re mommy’s baby, and I love you so much.” A few minutes later the mother has the baby nestled into her bosom as he drinks his bottle while wearing a clean diaper. Within minutes the baby is totally comforted and falls asleep in his mother’s arms.
Just like the baby can’t begin to fathom the world in which he lives, we as humans, as God’s children here on earth, can’t begin to imagine or see the life that awaits us in eternity with God. The Bible tells us in Isaiah 55:8, “’For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’”
At nine months old, the baby’s understanding of the world is extremely limited, and he didn’t understand the suffering that he was experiencing. At that point in his life, it was one of the worst things he had ever gone through, or at least one of the worst things that he could ever remember. When we compare the child’s thinking to our own thinking, as we experience pain and suffering here on earth, the comparison might go like this… “why would a loving mother allow this to happen to me? This is horrible! Why would she do me this way? I don’t deserve this. I don’t know if I believe in my mother anymore because she’s here one minute and gone the next.”
This is an example of the relationship that some people have with God. As we deal with the pain and suffering of this world, it’s hard to understand why a loving God would allow us to experience things like cancer, broken relationships, lost jobs, pandemics, or natural disasters like hurricanes and tornadoes that can kill thousands of people. Jesus told us in John 16:33, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart because I have overcome the world.” As a believer, I expect there to be trouble here on earth. It simply comes with the turf. For me to expect anything else would be naïve. I know with complete certainty that because of Jesus Christ my life in Heaven will be perfect after my life here on earth ends. Perfection will come, just not now. Jesus tells me in John 17:16 that I do not belong to this world. I belong with him and God in Heaven.
The author C.S. Lewis once said, “Aim for Heaven and you’ll get earth thrown in. Aim for earth and you’ll get neither.”
Regardless of a person’s belief, no one can argue that this life is temporary. All you have to do is look at the obituaries every day to know that. The Bible reminds us multiple times that this life is temporary, and eternity is forever. James 4:14 says, “How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog, it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.” While Second Corinthians 4:18 says, “So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Or, as my grandfather would eloquently say, “This life is just a fart-in-the-wind compared to eternity.”
For some people it’s a trust factor. We have trouble trusting God, because he’s asking us to believe in something that we can’t see! So instead, we put our faith in what is tangible, the things that are in front of us, the things we can touch and feel, just like the baby was reacting to the things he was feeling, but what he didn’t realize is things like a dirty diaper and an empty stomach are temporary. His mother’s love is everlasting, and so is God’s love. We’re like the baby with God, except we’re on a bigger scale. We can’t see the big picture of God’s plan just like the baby couldn’t see the big picture of his life.
Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight.”
Think about if the mother had picked the child up and said, “Quit crying…it’s all gonna be okay sweetie! Momma’s going to make it all better. In a few months you’ll start crawling, then you’ll start walking. In a few years you’ll go off to school and you’ll be really good at math. You’ll go on to college where you’ll fall in love with your future wife, while you study finance and economics. You’ll eventually wind up working on Wall Street, where you’ll make a seven-digit income as a genius in the stock market. You’ll live out a long, healthy life with a beautiful family and a great career.” Us trying to totally understand Heaven is like the baby understanding the stock market, or the concepts of higher education, and love and sex. We may not like it, but our suffering helps us to grow and mature as people. From there, God is able to work with us to help fulfill his will and his plans for us. The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 29:11 that God has a plan for every one of us, and in Psalm 139, he tells that he knows me so well that he “knit me together in my mother’s womb!” We have to remember that God has eternity in front of him and eternity behind him. It’s hard for us to measure eternity because we don’t have anything to measure it with. We can say things like, “I will love you forever,” but in reality, there is nothing on earth that lasts forever. We have no way to measure it, much less understand it. People die. Flowers die. Even buildings will rot and decay and wind up in a landfill someday. Understanding forever is like trying to understand infinity. It’s next to impossible. It helps when we realize how small we are in the universe. We are living on a tiny planet among billions of galaxies and stars. James Lovell, captain of the 1973 ill-fated Apollo 13 moon flight said, “being in space reminded me of how small we are when I was able to look back and see the Earth floating in space. I could put my thumb up to a window and completely hide the Earth. I thought, 'Everything I've ever known is behind my thumb.’” It’s like comparing an ant colony to the rest of the planet. The ants have no idea of what else is out there. What’s waiting on your soul after this life? That’s the ultimate question. God promises us that Heaven will be perfect, unlike earth, which is why we’re lucky that life on earth is temporary. He says, “I will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things will be gone forever.” The key to life is accepting that you can die at any moment. The quicker you can turn your thoughts beyond your existence here on earth and think about your existence in eternity with God, the better off you’ll be. In the end, all we can do is trust. It’s the biggest trust-fall that you’ll ever experience in your life. The Apostle Paul describes it in Second Corinthians 5:7 as “Living by faith rather than sight.” We have to trust God with the things we don’t understand just like the baby trusted his mother with the things he couldn’t understand. And, when you develop and master that trust, your life will be as perfect as it will ever be here on earth.
For some people it’s a trust factor. We have trouble trusting God, because he’s asking us to believe in something that we can’t see! So instead, we put our faith in what is tangible, the things that are in front of us, the things we can touch and feel, just like the baby was reacting to the things he was feeling, but what he didn’t realize is things like a dirty diaper and an empty stomach are temporary. His mother’s love is everlasting, and so is God’s love. We’re like the baby with God, except we’re on a bigger scale. We can’t see the big picture of God’s plan just like the baby couldn’t see the big picture of his life.
Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight.”
Think about if the mother had picked the child up and said, “Quit crying…it’s all gonna be okay sweetie! Momma’s going to make it all better. In a few months you’ll start crawling, then you’ll start walking. In a few years you’ll go off to school and you’ll be really good at math. You’ll go on to college where you’ll fall in love with your future wife, while you study finance and economics. You’ll eventually wind up working on Wall Street, where you’ll make a seven-digit income as a genius in the stock market. You’ll live out a long, healthy life with a beautiful family and a great career.” Us trying to totally understand Heaven is like the baby understanding the stock market, or the concepts of higher education, and love and sex. We may not like it, but our suffering helps us to grow and mature as people. From there, God is able to work with us to help fulfill his will and his plans for us. The Bible tells us in Jeremiah 29:11 that God has a plan for every one of us, and in Psalm 139, he tells that he knows me so well that he “knit me together in my mother’s womb!” We have to remember that God has eternity in front of him and eternity behind him. It’s hard for us to measure eternity because we don’t have anything to measure it with. We can say things like, “I will love you forever,” but in reality, there is nothing on earth that lasts forever. We have no way to measure it, much less understand it. People die. Flowers die. Even buildings will rot and decay and wind up in a landfill someday. Understanding forever is like trying to understand infinity. It’s next to impossible. It helps when we realize how small we are in the universe. We are living on a tiny planet among billions of galaxies and stars. James Lovell, captain of the 1973 ill-fated Apollo 13 moon flight said, “being in space reminded me of how small we are when I was able to look back and see the Earth floating in space. I could put my thumb up to a window and completely hide the Earth. I thought, 'Everything I've ever known is behind my thumb.’” It’s like comparing an ant colony to the rest of the planet. The ants have no idea of what else is out there. What’s waiting on your soul after this life? That’s the ultimate question. God promises us that Heaven will be perfect, unlike earth, which is why we’re lucky that life on earth is temporary. He says, “I will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things will be gone forever.” The key to life is accepting that you can die at any moment. The quicker you can turn your thoughts beyond your existence here on earth and think about your existence in eternity with God, the better off you’ll be. In the end, all we can do is trust. It’s the biggest trust-fall that you’ll ever experience in your life. The Apostle Paul describes it in Second Corinthians 5:7 as “Living by faith rather than sight.” We have to trust God with the things we don’t understand just like the baby trusted his mother with the things he couldn’t understand. And, when you develop and master that trust, your life will be as perfect as it will ever be here on earth.