Umbilical Connections

One day I was standing with Martha on her porch and she was sharing what she had been seeing about our love of the world, how we are connected to the world.

Suddenly I saw that those connections are the places where we demand our nourishment, like an unborn babies who’s umbilical connections to their mother by the umbilical cord to sustain their lives.

In truth those cords are our idolatries
that we believe feed our insatiable, primal need
for love, attention, fulfillment.

We may label them bad habits or addictions, but they go beyond those.  They include our demands and expectations of family members and friends, co-workers, employers … to satisfy and fulfill those needs.  It was a stark, visual picture as I saw how all those connections, like umbilical cords, bind us to multitudes of things and people, selfishly sucking out their very life.

In contrast, this picture took me back to a revelation I had years ago of being in the womb of God.  It came as I was reading Jeremiah 1:4-5 (NIV):

The word of the Lord came to me, saying,
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart…”

At that time I saw that this entire life is lived in the womb of God, that we are actually being nurtured and formed for another life, only birthed after death.  Some will be still-born, some aborted, some brought to full term, the choice being ours.

All of our nourishment, our needs for development flow through His umbilical cord to us.  We are connected to Him, receiving all from and through Him, being filled with His love and life flowing back to Him.

Oh, Father, bring Your sword and sever every umbilical cord to this world so that my deepest needs will be met through Your life, and so that Your purposes are fulfilled in me and that I may become one in union with You.  You are my All in All.