Chapter 8

8. My Messenger

At 6:00 a.m., July 16, 2017, I was lying in bed when I heard my wife call to me from the master bathroom. As my eyes sought to adjust to the light peeking into the bedroom from the bathroom door, I heard her say, “We are going to have a baby today.”

I jumped out of bed. “Today? Are you serious?” Our baby’s due date was two and a half weeks away. Perhaps this was simply a false alarm.

My wife then confirmed that she had been having contractions since 2:30 a.m.

“Since 2:30?” I asked. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

She told me that she wanted to wait and see how things progressed to ensure that it was, in fact, the real thing. A few hours later, she had arrived at her conclusion. It was go time. We should begin taking this seriously and get ready to make our way to the hospital.

The following day at 10:46 a.m., after more than thirty-two hours of labor, my son entered the world and took his first breath. I will never ever forget that moment. When he arrived, I felt as though I escaped my body temporarily. It was as if I was being transported to a different dimension altogether and I was floating in the room. The sensation was overwhelming. Meeting my son for the first time was like staring into the eyes of God.

Witnessing the miracle of life and seeing the purity of God’s perfect creation was something my heart could not prepare for in advance. No childbirth course, no YouTube tutorial, and no word-of-mouth testimonials from friends and family were enough to ready me for the rush of butterflies that almost angelically lifted me off my feet in the room that morning. God’s presence was undeniable. Rarely do we have the opportunity to visibly experience His perfect will, but in those very brief moments following the birth of a child, we are able to see with our own eyes life in its most perfect form—exactly as God intended it to be, free from any contamination of the outside world, straight from the heart of our Creator.

This experience was exactly what the devil had been working so hard to deny me for the previous twenty years of my life. On the other side of my most debilitating fear was the greatest miracle that I would ever encounter. The devil didn’t want me to come face-to-face with the heart of my Creator. Because he knew that once I did, I would understand the beauty of His Majesty and my eyes would never turn away from Him again. I would recognize the purity of His creation and the incredible value and purpose that He has carefully crafted and assigned to each of His children. As a witness to His amazing blessing through the eyes of my son, I would be given my own eyes to see that His same perfect intention was rooted within me as well. I would forever live with the understanding that the depth of His love far exceeded my own comprehension. I would never feel far from Him again.

We named our son Malachi. I made the suggestion to my wife over dinner one night because I really liked the sound of the name, and I knew it had a biblical connection. The meaning behind it was very special to us. Malachi means “My Messenger” or “Messenger of God.” I sensed that our child was going to have a significant role among the Lord’s children, so I really believed it was a perfect fit for our firstborn son. My wife agreed.

Malachi serves as the last book in the Old Testament of the Bible. He was the final prophet to hear from God and share His Word before the arrival of John the Baptist. The world underwent 400 “Silent Years” following the writings of Malachi, who came at a time when people were really struggling to believe that God truly loved them. They were focused on the lack that they were experiencing. Instead of looking at their own sin, they allowed themselves to identify as victims of circumstance. Malachi urged the people to make changes, to own responsibility for their actions, and return to God and serve Him faithfully. Then he shared a final warning and message of hope:

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty. (Malachi 4:1–2)

I absolutely loved this piece of Scripture. I could not deny the connection it shared with the prophetic dream that I had experienced two months to the day before Malachi’s conception that was linked to the Book of Revelation and the second coming of Christ. The message from Malachi was about the End Times. It was serious, but it also carried a Word of peace for believers who turned their eyes and their hearts back to God.

Our firstborn son came into our lives in God’s perfect timing for a very real reason. The name that was given to him was of no coincidence. We didn’t choose it; the Spirit did. Like the former prophet, Malachi’s arrival carried both a warning and a message of hope. Turn back to God and lean on Him and not on your own understanding in the midst of fear, uncertainty, and tribulation. And God will protect you from the wrath of evil, and you will rise triumphantly through redemptive healing at the time of His return.

July 17, 2017, seemed like a really special day to be born. What made it even more unique was that Malachi arrived seventeen days in advance of his due date, which was August 3. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was perhaps another connection to Scripture. Then I found it in the Book of Revelation. Chapter 7, verse 17 reads, “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Chills came over my body. There it was. “Water.” The Word that I had received on the beach just two months prior to my vision of the white horse and Jesus Christ. That was it. My son’s birth had tied the prophecies together. “Water” was the key. Not just any water but “living” water.

What is “living water”? Living water is the Holy Spirit. This is confirmed in the Gospel of John where Jesus states, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Then John goes on to say, “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

We know that the Holy Spirit first descended upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost as Jesus promised prior to his crucifixion when He said, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

God provides us with the Holy Spirit to help us navigate the uncertainties of life, and He allows us to maintain peace in a world that is growing more deeply at odds with Him each and every day. Notice that I said, “God provides.” You’ll recall from the previous chapter that my obsessive anxiety related to fatherhood was rooted in a fear surrounding my inability to provide. It was only when I let go and trusted the provision of God alone that my miracle, my precious son, Malachi, was conceived.

When Malachi came into this world, he carried a very distinct message for his father. Understand what God can do. Trust His will. Embrace your purpose. Turn to Him to provide all things. As everything of this fallen world begins to falter, God’s living water will sustain you, Dad. It will sustain us. It will be the hope and redemption for our family. Lead us in the Truth with the Holy Spirit as your guide. The time is now. It’s never been more critical.

The children of God are living in a world that is broken. It’s a world where the sinful nature of humanity has been magnified over thousands and thousands of years since Adam and Eve first rebelled against God in the Garden of Eden. The fallen angel, Lucifer, who became God’s “adversary” or the evil one that we know today as Satan, was the serpent advocating for the sampling of the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This curious sampling, of course, became the opening sin of humanity. But sin originated with Lucifer in the spiritual world before it ever existed here in the natural. That’s the reason why Lucifer was cast out of heaven for eternity. That’s why it’s within this earthly realm that the devil has chosen to build his kingdom by deceiving the children of God and concealing His divine will for our lives.

Sin is difficult to escape in a world where morality has grown increasingly deficient. How do we even define purity in an environment where everything seems to be tainted with a touch of...