Handle with Care
by Chris Seidman
I'll never forget that feeling the day we packed our things to leave the hospital. West Florida Regional Hospital had been wonderful to us. The labor and delivery nurses were attentive, compassionate, and full of genuine joy for us. The doctor was great. The nurses that looked after Tara and her disheveled husband were thorough and sensitive to every one of our needs. The nurses that worked in the nursery were fabulous. I couldn't help but think that this baby stuff was easier than I had expected. But then it was time for us to leave.
As I pulled the Toyota around to the front of the hospital, loaded it and helped Tara and Skyler get into the car, a horrifying thought gripped me. "None of these people at the hospital are coming home with us!" I suddenly wanted to cry out, "Are you sure you don't want to come home with us?" I don't remember driving slower or more carefully in my life than when I pulled out onto Davis Highway. I can't ever remember being more critical and judgmental of those lunatics buzzing by me as though they were trying to break the sound barrier. This was especially hypocritical when you consider that I'm usually one of those lunatics.
A strange mixture of fear and joy comes with driving off from the hospital with your firstborn in the vehicle. There's a powerful sense of transition and new beginning, and yet fear as well. It's a fear closely attached to the question, "What do I do with this thing?" It's a healthy fear born out of an awareness of the fragility of new life.
It wasn't long before another thought crossed my mind: "This is exactly how God's people should view and care for a new believer." On more than one occasion the New Testament refers to new believers as babies (John 3:5; Heb. 5:12-14). I'm sure you know that babies have soft spots on their heads. These soft spots are places where the bones have not yet grown together. I remember being able to see and feel Skyler's pulse through his soft spot on the top of his head. Any new believer or anyone who has recently rededicated themselves to Christ has some soft spots as well. They are spiritually fragile, learning to live as a whole new creation with new habits and a new perspective. Because of this they need our constant support, attention, and affection.
I recently heard about three ministers in Minnesota who got together for coffee one day. They were talking about the problem of bat infestation in their church buildings. One minister said he got so mad that he took a shotgun to the building. He reported that it had done little good only making holes in the ceiling. The second minister said that he trapped the bats alive, drove them fifty miles outside of town, and released them. Two weeks later they were back in church. The third minister commented that he simply didn't have any more problems with bats. When the others asked what he did, he replied, "I simply baptized them and I haven't seen them since."
It's somewhat sad that we all get the joke. But I think this joke reflects more upon the church than it does the new believer. I've seen church after church pour all their energy into getting people to make "a decision" in regard to placing membership, getting baptized or recommitting themselves to God. At the moment of decision the church expresses tremendous joy and excitement. But within weeks there's a noticeable absence of support, attention and affection for the ones who've made the decision. Ministers and church members are off to recruit others to make "a decision" for Christ.
How many times have churches done the equivalent of leaving a baby on the doorstep hoping someone else will take care of that new baby Christian? More often than not, churches have been guilty of aborting and abandoning new believers through their neglect.
When I consider a local church's responsibility to new believers, I often think of Isaiah 40:11 and how Isaiah describes God. "He tends his flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart." God carries the lambs, the young ones, the ones who can't stand yet, and He carries them close to His heart. They're fragile so He handles them with care.
It's difficult to think of the apostle Paul as a lamb, a young 'un, who had difficulty standing on his own. He wrote almost half of the books that make up the New Testament, and in some of them his personality seems more like a lion than a lamb. But there was a time when Paul was, indeed, a young 'un when it came to the Christian faith. His conversion story in Acts 9:1-19 may be one of the most radical turnabouts recorded in Scripture. The story that followed his conversion is just as significant (Acts 9:19-31). It happened when Paul was so young in the faith that he still went by his old name, Saul. It didn't take long for Saul's conversion to make front page news in Damascus. This is due to the fact that Saul didn't exactly keep it a secret. Following his conversion he spent several days with the disciples in Damascus, and "at once" (Acts 9:20) began preaching in the synagogues that Jesus was the Son of God.
According to Acts 9:21, the Jews in the synagogues were no less than astonished at what Saul was saying. "Isn't he the same man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn't he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?" Here was a man who, only days earlier, had left Jerusalem to travel to Damascus with the intention of dragging any Jews who had confessed their faith in Jesus back to Jerusalem and throwing them in prison (Acts 9:1-2). But now he's preaching the very message that he's been throwing other Jews in jail for believing.
These synagogues in Damascus were probably the very ones in which Saul had received his letters of credit as an official agent of the Jewish faith and of the Sanhedrin. Now, in these very places, Saul is lifting his voice on behalf of the One whom he had been vehemently opposing. It would have been much easier and safer for Saul to have preached first to a people who did not know him or have a record of his past. Instead, Saul stood before those who knew him best and preached a message that just about got him killed. Were it not for some of the believers in Damascus, perhaps he would have been killed. Under the cover of night they sneaked Saul out of town. Unfortunately, though, he had merely sneaked out of the frying pan and into the fire.
After leaving Damascus, he travels only deeper into newfound enemy territory -- Jerusalem, the very epicenter of Judaism and opposition against the message of Jesus Christ. Conscious of the word spreading and the threats made on his life, Saul looked to join the group of fellow believers in Jerusalem. When he arrived he tried to join the local church there, "but they were afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple" (Acts 9:26).
Instead of open arms, Saul encountered slammed doors. Suddenly he was positioned between bookends of rejection. His former associates, friends and peers rejected him because of his defection. His fellow believers rejected him because they refused to believe that his conversion was authentic and could not forget his former campaign of persecution against them.
Have you ever felt stuck between bookends of rejection? Left out in the cold? Hung out to dry and twisting in the wind? Your soft spots left exposed? Well, I hope that you had what Saul had.
He was Barnabas and his name meant "son of encouragement." Barnabas did indeed live up to his name. He was the hinge upon which the door that was once slammed in Saul's face swung open. Luke writes:
"But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus. So Saul stayed with them and moved about freely in Jerusalem, speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. He talked and debated with the Grecian Jews, but they tried to kill him. When the brothers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus" (Acts 9:27-30). Very early in his Christian experience, Saul learned the place and importance of other believers in his life.
While a relationship with Christ will make you alive (Ephesians 2:5), it's a relationship with His followers that will keep you alive, literally and spiritually. In both Damascus and Jerusalem believers came to the aid of Saul and saved his life. We don't know their names, but God does. The one name we do know is Barnabas. Why? I think it's because he came to Saul's aid at a time when he was in a soft spot. It was early in his Christian experience, and he was incredibly vulnerable. If Barnabas hadn't spoken on Saul's behalf to the church in Jerusalem, I wonder if Saul would have been around long enough to have his name changed and write what amounts to almost half of our New Testament. It was Barnabas who made the difference in the believers changing their minds and accepting Saul, eventually helping to save his life when the local religious establishment attempted to kill him.
The next time someone mentions Paul being a giant of the faith, remember Barnabas and how he handled Saul with care when he was in a soft spot. Behind every giant, there's a giant-maker.
Many years ago a girl known as Little Annie lived in a mental institution outside of Boston. Her room was like a dungeon. It received little light and even less hope. According to doctors, it was the only place for those who were hopelessly insane. During Little Annie's time in the dungeon, an elderly nurse who was nearing retirement believed there was hope -- even for the "hopeless." She would take her lunch down to the dungeon and eat outside the cell where Little Annie was kept. She felt that she could, perhaps, communicate some love and hope to the little girl.
In many ways Little Annie behaved like an animal. On occasion she would charge at the person sitting outside her cell; other times, she would sit in the corner ignoring her visitor. One day the elderly nurse brought some brownies and left them for her. Little Annie gave no hint that she knew or even cared that they were there, but when the nurse returned the next day, the brownies were gone. Every Thursday, from that time forward, the elderly nurse would bring Little Annie brownies.
Before long doctors in the institution noticed that Little Annie was changing. After a period of time observing her, they decided to "promote" her to another wing of the institution. Eventually this "hopeless" case was told that she could return to her home in the "outside" world. Little Annie refused to go. She wanted to stay and help others who were facing the kind of adversity she once faced. Many years later, it was Little Annie who cared for, taught and nurtured Helen Keller.*
Little Annie was Anne Sullivan, and Helen Keller, as I'm sure you know, changed how the world viewed the disabled and challenged. When Helen Keller was in a soft spot, it was Anne Sullivan who handled her with care. When Anne Sullivan was in a soft spot, it was an elderly nurse who handled her with care. The world is a different place today for the physically and mentally challenged because of an anonymous elderly nurse who handled with care someone in a soft spot.
You can be sure God knows that nurse's name and anyone else's name who lives up to the name of Barnabas, a son of encouragement. Keep your eyes open for those with "soft spots." In doing so, you could be helping rescue tomorrow's giants.
This is Part 1 of a series.
(Next week, Part 2)
-----------------
*James S. Hewett, ed., Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1988), p. 290.
Posted: 05/17/2001
(c) 2001 Chris Seidman. Excerpted from "Little Buddy," New Leaf Books, 2001. Used by permission. Purchase the book at: http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?event=AFF&p=1014827&item_no=WW0083637
(c) 1996-2006, Heartlight, Inc.
URL: http://www.heartlight.org/articles/200105/20010517_buddy1.html