God's Adoption for the FatherlessSample

Day Seven – Living in God’s Family

Becca and I were connected with an orphanage while on mission in Korea. They had a deal – an American citizen willing to take a baby to the US for adoption would get a cheap flight. Being poor missionary teachers, we did it.

The adopting couple met us in the Chicago airport, and when we handed that baby over, they wept. It was like being in the delivery room. Months and years of struggle, sorrow, and desire for a baby transformed into joy for them.

Adoption doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a conscious, intentional choice and commitment because of the effort involved. I know several families that have adopted, and their stories are years of paperwork, hard choices, and fundraising. Adoption is a serious and expensive process full of issues and obstacles.

Yet it is also full of joy. Families discover love, compassion, and healing on a deeper level due to the generous choice of adoption.

God was willing to pay the price to bring us into his family. He was willing to do the work of love and healing necessary. He shares everything he is and has with us because he loves us. Because he thinks we are worth it.

And because it excites him. Have you ever given someone a gift and couldn’t wait until they unwrapped it because you knew how much they would love it? That’s how God feels having us in his family.

Having you. He’s ecstatic about it.

My prayer for us is to first recognize the lies the Devil has tried to feed us: that we are abandoned by God, alone, rejected, and unloved. Next, and most importantly, I pray we all meditate on the secure and abundant love of the Father through Christ and renew our minds to those truths.

Write these truths and the scriptures on a mirror or other places you see every day; retrain your thinking to the Truth that brings freedom and life.

Realize that when people act out of fear, insecurity, and lack, those are symptoms of something deep and spiritual. Then speak truth and act in love with others to communicate how much the Father loves them, too.

Father, thank you for adopting me into your family. Help me to renew my mind to your truth and love and to share that reality with others. Amen.