Well, the sproglet is now almost 4 months old. But I don’t have anything new or interesting to say about babies (being pregnant was exasperating from beginning to end, giving birth wasn’t much fun, and looking after a baby is all-consuming) (- just to prove the point).
So on here it will just be the same old same old.
Like – the first thing I read once the baby arrived, other than, of course, facebook, was Thomas Goodwin on saving faith.
This was really just revisiting familiar territory, in a concession to the mush that my head had/has become. The page I opened at said this:
“… though promises are the means by which we believe, yet it is the promiser that is the basis or the foundation on whom our hearts ultimately and quietly rest for the performance [of what is promised].”
And this was helpful. The scriptures are full of great and precious promises. Sometimes they seem almost too good to be true and too much to hope for, although obviously their credibility comes from God’s faithfulness, not from our optimism, our grasp of them, or the circumstances looking likely.
But more to the point, even when we do believe them, there is a problem if we end up fixating on the things promised at the expense of the one who does the promising. We’ll take his stuff, we’re not so concerned about him. We like the spiritual comfort and we like our providences running smoothly, but with the promise known to be guaranteed we then disloyally relax leaving the Lord in the background of just a corner of our lives. If only we would believe the promises by quietly resting our hearts more and more on the covenant keeping God.
(Ps – no more gratuitous baby photos, I promise!)
ninetysix and ten 
Welcome back. I hesitate to offer a comment on the photo, because in the past my views on babies’ appearance has been judged to be tactless. He looks charming, though.
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You mean he’s a whole lot better looking than in the photo on the previous blog post, Ben? Ah well, he’d had a big shock not to mention 9 months swimming in the dark back then.
Cath, he’s absolutely gorgeous (in terms of his actual appearance, not in the sense of the emotion of wonder at a new life that presumably causes some people to dub every newborn “gorgeous”), and your female friends, not to mention some of your male ones, will be unlikely to find it “gratuitous” if you post a good many more photos of him. Not necessarily on your blog if you don’t want to completely revolutionise its emphasis, but on Facebook, for instance.
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The jumper’s a very nice colour too.
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Please don’t hesitate to post more photos of your darling “sproglet.” He is so bright-eyed for his age! I agree that pregnancy, birth, and a new baby can be exhausting, but it is so worth the reward. It does get easier (at least it did for me the next 7 times). Enjoy your beautiful baby.
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What a gorgeous (there, I said it) little man. Can you tell who he looks like more – you or your husband?
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Thanks folks!
Ben, that’s tactful enough for me!
Peter – facebook maybe, don’t hold your breath…
Marcia, that’s encouraging, although I don’t fancy trying 7+ experiments :-)
Richard, we haven’t decided yet – as we’re living in my husband’s part of the country everyone here sees him like him, but I’m not convinced there’s a strong resemblance to either of us!
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I apologise for the grammatical mistake in my earlier comment. False attraction, I think. I’m quick enough to complain when other people commit this crime, and here I am doing it myself.
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At least the apostrophe is in the right place though
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Im obsessive about apostrophe’s.
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What was that which belonged to apostrophe?
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‘Sproglet!?’ What a name for a future editor of the Gospel Standard! ;)
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If it *was* his surname it would go quite well with such colourful ones as Philpot and Ramsbottom, wouldn’t it?
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Ha ha, one of his admirers has already given him a Martin Luther toy figure – that should help to keep him on the straight and narrow!
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I’d argue for strait and narrow (granted, that’s tautology, but Matthew 7:14). Can we have a picture of the toy? Are other reformers available? Can one collect a set, from Beza to Zwingli?
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The reference might be to Pilgrim’s Progress, Ben. Bunyan was well aware of the “strait gate” (he wrote a book on it), but Christian’s path in was “straight and narrow”:
{66} GOOD-WILL. We make no objections against any, notwithstanding
all that they have done before they came hither. They are in no
wise cast out [John vi.37]; and therefore, good Christian, come a
little way with me, and I will teach thee about the way thou must
go. Look before thee; dost thou see this narrow way? THAT is
the way thou must go; it was cast up by the patriarchs, prophets,
Christ, and his apostles; and it is as straight as a rule can make
it. This is the way thou must go.
…
GOOD-WILL. Yes, there are many ways butt down upon this, and they
are crooked and wide. But thus thou mayest distinguish the right
from the wrong, the right only being straight and narrow. [Matt
7:14]
Did he get confused at Matthew 7:14? I don’t know. But he would have been familiar with this text: Isaiah 30:21: “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.”
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Playmobil Martin Luther
I’m waiting for the Thomas Chalmers and Donald Macfarlane figures to appear next.
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“Frequently bought together with PLAYMOBIL® 6107 – Artist Albrecht Dürer”
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