AGAIN

Richie mumbled it, barely audible. I knew what he was saying because I had heard it before. “I keep messing up because of the way my mom raised me.” At nineteen, he’s convinced that his life-gone-wrong is his mom’s fault.

His last six years have been a tumultuous journey of peaks and valleys. There have been jubilant “Yes!” moments as he edged toward his potential for success. Now again, it is as if some bungee cord of fate has stretched to its success limit for Richie. And almost unexplainably he is whipped back into a life of failure.

I couldn’t deny that his parenting was far from perfect. Who could argue that his environment didn’t effect his decisions? Still Richie needed to be asked: “Did your mom make you steal the gun?” In the same vein, my probing continued. For each question he conceded: “No, my mom didn’t . . .”

With personal responsibility established, I wasn’t going to drop him off in the it’s-your-fault pile. We needed to land someplace else.

“Richie, I feel terrible about the way you were raised . . . wouldn’t it be great if you could just start over again-- from the beginning,” I said. He was silent. “Richie, what you need is to be born again.”

Jesus said: “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying: you must be born again.”

Richie, in your first birth you were born into a troubled environment. Mixed with your own decisions, a troubled life was birthed. Jesus is offering you the opportunity to miraculously be born again. This birth is God’s Holy Spirit birth. This birth produces Spirit life, God life inside you. This birth will change who you are.

Again-- you have a decision.