The birth of my granddaughter on Christmas Eve has made me ponder new birth in new ways. Having given birth to my own son by Caesarean section because he was in a breech position, I have no personal experience of labour whatsoever, but am assured by all other mothers who have that experience that labour is just that – hard work! The rewards of a baby are worth the pain (see Jn 16:21), but there is no doubting the pain, effort and sheer hard work that go into delivering a child. My daughter-in-law had a long labour and I was privileged to be able to glimpse something of her struggles and work in the agonisingly long wait through that labour until the excited news arrived of a safe delivery.
As we are praying for spiritual new birth, it strikes me that perhaps we need to be much more aware of the need for hard work in prayer. People need to be born again; we long to see people coming to faith in Christ and being born again of the Spirit. That does not happen overnight, however, any more than a baby arrives in the world instantaneously. There is often a journeying towards faith: questioning, doubting, wondering, aching, longing, arguing, fighting, yielding, surrendering. Many people may be involved in that journey (‘links in the chain’, we often say, or, to use Paul’s analogy, those who plant, water or harvest the seed. (1 Cor 3:6-9)) We need to understand that prayer is work, and it may often need to be as determined, effort-filled and arduous as the labour of a woman before giving birth in the natural realm. Paul said, ‘Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured.’ (Col 4:12) Wrestling in prayer conveys the fact that to pray for people to be born again is not something for the fainthearted. We have to be persistent and not give up.
There are times during labour when the woman feels she will fail, that she cannot continue, that there will never be an end to the pain she is experiencing. She needs the encouragement of others (usually a birthing partner and a midwife, who combine both love and experience) to persevere and press on. The moment of delivery may well involve excruciating pain, the tearing of her very flesh perhaps, but the moment the baby is in her arms, there is a sense of achievement and victory beyond words.
We need to pray with the same kind of commitment and determination of a woman in labour. This is a spiritual battle, and the devil does not want to yield control over people. We need to pray with fervour and perseverance for God to shine the light of His love into people’s hearts, that blinded eyes may finally see (2 Cor 4:3-6). We need to pray for God to give us words to speak to those we love: family, friends, colleagues, neighbours, passers-by. We need to pray for the conviction of the Holy Spirit to come upon people. We cannot do this casually or even occasionally; we need to pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17), wrestling in prayer even as Jacob wrestled with God (Gen 32), determined not to give in or give up, but to press through until we see, figuratively speaking, the head engaged!
My son told me that his daughter’s head literally battered against her mother before finally she emerged into the world. Natural birth is not easy for the mother or for the baby. Spiritual birth is not easy. Those whom God is calling may be resistant and reluctant, but we are called to pray them into the kingdom, ‘battering’ in prayer, so to speak, like a battering ram.
This is not an easy subject, for we much prefer a life of leisure and contentment to one of sacrifice and prayer. If we want to see people born in Zion (see Ps 87:4-6), we have to be willing to wrestle in prayer, however. We cannot do without the hard work (labour) of prayer.