“Adoption granted,” the judge said.
I looked at my wife and then at our new children. Joy filled our hearts as we smiled at those from the orphanage who had helped us.
As millions of adoptive parents testify, adopting a child is one of the greatest experiences a person can have. The lead-up to adoption is harrowing but overshadowed by the hope that one day the child will be yours.
One of the challenges while on the way home was answering our children’s question about why they were adopted. While we couldn’t answer all their questions, we assured them God had a plan for their lives, as well as for ours (Jeremiah 29:11). In God’s plan, they had been born for us to adopt.
In the same way, God births us for adoption into His family. He knows us before we are born. He was not required to adopt us, yet He chose to. And not because we were cute and cuddly—we were sinners—but because He loved us. He pictured us as we were supposed to be and knew how our lives would only make sense in relationship to Him.
Sometimes we do not like to think of ourselves as adopted by God because we think we would have been fine otherwise. We think of God more as a judge than as a father. Perhaps that is why Paul emphasizes the most intimate word for father to describe our adoptive relationship.
Don’t let anything stop you from receiving all the Father wants to give you. You have been adopted by the One who loved you before you were born.
Let your heart be filled with thankfulness to God for birthing you for adoption.
(Photo courtesy of pixabay.)
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Thank you Marcellus for this reminder. I tend to forget that I have an Abba who loves me very much and has adopted me into His family.