When my youngest daughter Eva was born, I noticed in the first two minutes that something was clearly wrong with her breathing. She was gasping for air with each breath. Her little chest was heaving in and out as though she were being suffocated by something invisible. I immediately brought it to the doctor’s attention, and he seemed to act like it wasn’t that big of a deal. He said, “This happens all the time. She probably has fluid in her lungs.”

Ten minutes later, they rushed her straight to the Intensive Care Unit. I followed close behind them, asking them over and over, “Can’t we just suck the fluid out of her lungs?Isn’t there something we can do for her?” They proceeded to put her under a heat lamp and do nothing. I was able to look through a window to the I.C.U. and check up on her whenever I wanted. I came and left about a hundred times in the first three hours. I was slowly getting more and more frustrated with the doctors because every time I came and looked through the window, Eva was lying there gasping for breath, and the doctor was sitting at a desk doing nothing.

One time I stood there for almost thirty minutes, and in that time period the doctor looked up from her desk a total of three times to check on my daughter. Once four hours of this nonsense had gone by, I was furious. What’s the point in letting this child gasp for air, and not doing anything to help her?

At about four and a half hours, Eva was sweating and moaning. She was getting tired of gasping and working to breathe. It looked like she was slowly dying. I became irate and I called the head doctor on that floor and demanded that something be done. She came and met me in the hall and I brought her over to my struggling daughter and told her the story of what I had witnessed the last five hours. “Why aren’t you guys doing anything?” I said. “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

I will never forget the doctor’s reply to me. She looked at me squarely in the eyes and said, “There’s a lot we can do for your daughter, but we’re choosing to do nothing for the first six hours.” She said, “We have to give her time to declare herself.” She went on to explain to me that, “Eva must fight to survive.” If they helped her from the beginning, they would actually be hurting her in the long run. She said, “We have to see how badly Eva wants to live. This is good for her.” She promised me that if Eva should quit breathing altogether, they would step in and save her, but until they see signs of that happening, they just wait and watch.

Once I understood what was happening, I let myself in to the I.C.U. and I stood by Eva’s crib – bent down and put my lips to her little ear. I said, “Breathe, baby, breathe. Breathe, baby, breathe.” Her eyes cracked open, and then shut again as she continued her battle for life. Two hours later, she was lovingly swaddled in a sweet smelling blanket and safely returned to her mother’s arms. Turns out, the doctor was absolutely right. She has been “declaring herself” every damn day for the last five years! Out of our five children, she is the strongest willed by far. I often wonder if it’s because of those first six hours of her life.

Common Christian Treasure Hunts

I can’t tell you how many sincere Christians have told me about their constant battle to reclaim the relationship they had with God in the beginning of their walk. So many people reminisce about how wonderful it was in the early years, and they constantly kick themselves for letting it get cold and die away. If they could just get back to that glorious place where everything was so spiritually powerful and delightfully simple, they would finally be where they’ve always wanted to be with God. Happiness, peace, and joy are surely waiting for them there. Until that happens, most Christians I know spend the majority of their time trying to recapture that intensity and passion they once had for God, and I will tell you flat out that I’ve NEVER EVER seen anyone actually find it.

This seems to be an extremely common phenomenon among Christians. I have personally spent most of my life doing exactly what I’ve described. Looking, searching, praying, and wishing I could find what I used to have with God when I first met Him. It was so easy in those days. It seemed like everything was handed to me on a spiritual silver platter. Then religion with it’s rules and doctrines and traditions had to go and mess it all up. I have been on this search for most of my life until the day Eva was born. Something in me changed with that experience. I understood the Heart of God a little more than I did before.

When a child is conceived and begins to grow in his mother’s womb, his life is a total cake walk. There’s a cord connected to his tummy that provides everything he needs to develop and grow. All he has to do is kick back and enjoy. When we took the first ultra sound pictures of our daughter, Landin, we were in for an amazing surprise. She was literally dancing in her mother’s womb. She was jumping, doing flips and dancing all around. We couldn’t believe our eyes. It was amazingly beautiful. I told my wife, “Must be nice.” Not a care in the world.

When the baby is born, that cord is still attached. For ten months, the mother literally poured everything of herself into that child through that cord. Everything from blood, fluid, oxygen, food, and even DNA from both daddy and momma. There is a point however, where it’s time to “Cut the Cord.” It’s a point when all of mother is in the child and it’s time to be born. If the baby stays in longer than the duedate, eventually the mother’s womb can no longer provide life and nutrition for the baby. After a certain amount of time, it actually begins to hurt the child. This is why being born is so necessary.

I’m always amazed when I meet someone who said a “sinner’s prayer” an hour ago, and they refer to themselves as “born again.” It’s perplexing to me that we believe that accepting Jesus Christ is the same as being “born again.” Where in this world, does any creature conceive and give birth in an instant? Why do we think it’s this way in spirit?

Asking Christ to come into your heart is NOT what makes you born again. It is simply conception. Many people out there experience conception, but end up being miscarried because the conception was synthetic. Kind of like how birth control pills tell a woman’s body that she’s pregnant when she’s really not. I think there are many people who experiment with spiritual conception, but aren’t interested in the least in being born again. Institutional Christianity has become experts in “knocking up the Holy Spirit” with an unwanted pregnancy. In other words, we’ve figured out how to do artificial insemination by stimulating a person emotionally and carnally. They latch on to the Holy Spirit and conception takes place, but the pregnancy ultimately ends in miscarriage because the person wasn’t the least bit interested in being born again.

In my experience, a person usually becomes “born again” about a year or so after conception. It’s just a moment in someone’s life where everything just seems to open up and come together. Most Christians I know can even pinpoint the time when they were fully grown and the Spirit gave birth to them. It doesn’t happen in a day.

It has been my opinion that during the time we are developing in the womb of the Spirit (before being born again) we are connected to an umbilical cord and getting fed all of the Spirit for that short time. That’s that time in your life that you remember where everything was so wonderful and simple between you and God. There is a point however when the Spirit has given us all He can. A point when we’ve fully developed and are ready for birth. Once we are born again an amazing thing happens that I believe modern day Christianity has overlooked completely.

When my daughter Landin was born, she came out full of her mother. She was still connected to her mother. The first thing that had to happen before anything else could take place was up to me. I reached in with a pair of scissors and cut the cord. It’s the father’s way of saying, “You have sat back and developed and grown in your mother’s womb in a beautiful relationship. Now it’s time to cut the cord of that relationship and give you choice. Though the cord is cut, know that you are all of your mother and all of me. Relationship, from this day forward, is your choice.” It must be that way!

I’ve discovered that the time we Christians long to go back to, was actually our spiritual womb time. You can’t go back to it. You’ll never get to experience it again. It was there for a specific time and for a specific purpose, but the Father has cut the cord and you have been born again. You are now full of Him, and relationship is choice. He no more expects you to recapture your “womb time” than I expect one of my children to crawl back into Angie’s womb and relive it. In other words, STOP FEELING GUILTY. Stop searching for a “corded” relationship with God like you used to have. You’re not getting it. He won’t let you go back to that. It wasn’t YOU who screwed it up. It was your Father who cut the cord.

When you think the Father is calling you back to the way it used to be, you are mistaken. It is not His will that you be carried and fed as a helpless child for the rest of your life. God is the one who purposefully ended that glorious time when you were in the womb of His Spirit. Don’t waste your energy trying to reattach the umbilical cord. If you feel like you’re suffocating in this world It’s time for you to stand up and “declare yourself.” God isn’t saying, “Come back to me” or “If you could only recapture what we used to have together, everything would be fine.” He cut the cord of that relationship and today He leans in closely and whispers,

“Breathe baby breathe. Breathe baby breathe.”