Micah 4:9 Now why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no king in thee? is thy counsellor perished? for pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail.

Micah describes the pangs of new birth into the kingdom of God. There is a similitude of births of water and the spirit. Both are announced in travail. Beyond this we can only look upon these events in others because we ourselves do not remember that moment of birth.

Water birth happens and the baby comes forth crying from the womb. As the baby is laid upon the mother’s chest, the baby hears the mother’s heartbeat. Suddenly a calm comes over the child like a miracle. All the pain of birth is forgotten once the child hears that familiar heartbeat that had been so close and familiar all those months.

Can I remember any such event in my new birth? No, I do not recall any such miracle at that moment of new birth. Decades removed from that moment, I cannot pin down that event to any one moment. As Micah points out, when did the King enter in? When did my counselor first speak to me?

Remember back to My Witness and the anger that left me. Was that the moment of my new birth? I wasn’t aware at the time of an event called being born again. All I knew was the travail and the end of it. If the King entered in then, why did He not announce Himself? If my counselor was there, why didn’t He announce the coming of my King? Why were they silent? Or were they?

Comparing births again, water and spirit, what is priority number one? This babe is helpless and needs the mother and father to supply every need. Babes do not even know how to ask for things. We cry and it is the parent’s responsibility to discover why the baby is crying and to meet its needs.

Romans 6:4 Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

The definition of vicarious is to live one’s life through the life of another. Being born again is a spiritual matter. We are seen by God as dying with Christ, being resurrected in Christ and living our life in Christ. How God sees us greatly matters. God is not deluded. He knows the truth.

Faith is that bridge between the spiritual realm and the world where we live. We see with earthly eyes that do not see that realm. We hear with earthly ears that do not hear God. Being born again we are given spiritual eyes and ears that see and hear God.

Job 33:4 The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.

Think of being born of the spirit in the same way as being born of water. We come out into the world and take our first breath. The spirit within us takes its first breath in the spiritual realm and breaths the breath of the Almighty. Jesus upon taking a place in our hearts breaths live into us once again.

John 3:8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Note closely the words “hearest the sound thereof”. This is the spirit heard within our souls once we are born again. As with all new sounds our first reactions are, “What was that?” Do we really understand at the first hearing of the spirit?