But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God. [John 1:12-13 (NLT)]

When we’re born again, we come into God’s family through faith in Jesus Christ. This spiritual birth is a new beginning, but for some of us, it seems like we’ve had several new beginnings in our lifetimes! In my infant Baptism, my sponsors dedicated me to God and promised that I would be raised in the Christian faith. At my Confirmation in eighth grade, I made a public affirmation of those same promises and accepted Jesus. My teen years were rather troubled and I briefly lost my way. Once in college, I found my way back and once more accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Accepting Christ, however, is not quite the same as walking with Him. When my children were quite young, I again lost sight of the Lord. Serious doubts even briefly kept me from taking communion. God led me back and, once again, I ate at His table. Several years later, perhaps because I got too busy, comfortable and overconfident, I grew lax in my prayer life until a series of crises brought me back to Him.

There were times in my life when I floundered spiritually and others when I walked confidently with the Lord as my shepherd. Whenever I lost my way, once I turned back to Jesus, the Father welcomed me back into His family with open arms. Each time, I’ve been reborn in my faith and each time my faith has become stronger. I can only hope and pray that this time my faith is great enough to keep me firm and strong in my belief until my dying day.

We are so incredibly blessed to have a loving and patient Father in Heaven. Like the father of the prodigal son, He forgives us when we wander off and He patiently waits for us to find our way home to him again.

We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found! [Luke 15:32 (NLT)]

Being born again is a new life, not of perfection but of striving, stretching, and searching — a life of intimacy with God through the Holy Spirit. There first must be an emptying, and then a refilling … It is a highly personal and subjective experience, possible only if we are searching for greater truths about ourselves and God. This experience is challenging, even painful at times, but ultimately deeply rewarding. It provides answers to the most disturbing questions about our existence, the purpose of life, and how to deal with sorrow, failure, loneliness, guilt, and fear. In it, we come to know that our gifts from God are not earned by our own acts but are given to us through his grace … For me, it has been an evolutionary thing. Rather than a flash of light or a sudden vision of God speaking, it involved a series of steps that have brought me steadily closer to Christ. [From “Living Faith” by Jimmy Carter]