Ichrist-in-you1t’s been nearly 12 years since my boys were born. I remember that day however like it was  yesterday. I can remember when my wife told me, It’s time. I remember that it was nothing like the movies or television shows depict it. I didn’t almost forget her at home. I was just concerned, scared, and nervous.

When we arrived at the hospital, the nurses got my wife all connected. The machine that predicted the contractions was what kept my attention. I loved looking at the little needle slide up and down. I began to realize that I could help my wife by telling her what was coming and when it was almost over. Two words – Big Mistake!

My wife was great. She was pregnant with our first child, which happened to actually be twins! As the time came for her to give birth to my sons, the intensity was growing. The more I said, the more I wished I would just stop talking. Nothing I could do or say was helping at all.

Several years later, we had a little girl. And things were much different. I was there, but I was quiet. I don’t think I said a word unless she asked me a question. I sat there and cheered her on quietly, in my head. But I was praying. It’s all I could do.

Every time I think of the births of my children, I’m reminded of a message that Paul gave in his letter to Jesus followers in Galatia. I like the way the Message paraphrase reads, Do you know how I feel right now, and will feel until Christ’s life becomes visible in your lives? Like a mother in the pain of childbirth. Paul was feeling a pain that men will never feel physically. Women get it. They know what he’s getting at. The crux of the birth process is meeting that baby. And when the child is born, the room is filled with tears. Tears of joy. Tears of pain. Tears of sadness. And sometimes tears just for the sake of tears. These tears however are markers of something beautiful. Tears are the mark of a new beginning.

Paul is using imagery that people around the world and across time know very well. Not just childbirth but pain, excruciating pain. Paul feels this pain as he watches the people with whom he interacts daily struggle with the reality of Jesus in their lives. He’s waiting for Jesus to be formed in them. It’s the Jesus in you and me that causes this kind of pain for a man like Paul.

As a pastor and church-planter, I know what this feels like. I know the pain of watching and waiting for Jesus to be formed in the people who you pour your life and experience into. I’ve walked beside men as they learn the basics of bible teaching. I’ve watched them as their lives have changed right before my eyes. The transformation isn’t easy. Their old way of life just isn’t the same anymore.

If you really think about it, it’s an amazing thing. The Jesus in me is the same as the Jesus in you. We’re linked in some miraculous and amazing way to the Jesus who we call the Son of God. Through baptism, Paul says we are united with him. In communion we enter into an intimate meal with him. This Jesus in you and in me is moulding and forming us daily. And as we’re being formed by God into the image of His Son, the very ones who taught us to follow Jesus go through this same pain. They are our spiritual parents.

The most important part of the Jesus in you and in me is that while it’s happening to us it’s not about us. Jesus power and presence in our lives is real. And as we go through this transformation, this change, it’s best to go it with others around us. That’s why we go to church. That’s why we gather in missional pockets of people we call community. The bible is riddled with accounts of people living in community.

Know that as a believer in Jesus, God is forming you and is being formed in you. God wants you and me to be his presence where we live, work, and play. Where is God calling you to be His presence? Who has God already placed in your life that need the Jesus that is being formed in you?