Ok… I’m obsessed. After stumbling across the Christian Alliance for Orphans blog, I found – and devoured – the book Reclaiming Adoption: Missional Living Through the Rediscovering of Abba Father. I loved it! I felt compelled to respond to it here – with my people.
We can’t make things better. It was already perfect.
We can’t earn our keep. Jesus already died for that.
God knew all of us – even the parts that hurt - before we even existed. And it was worth the cost for Him from the very beginning. He wanted the fullness of us enjoying the fullness of Him.
Mmmmhmmm… Did you feel that? It feels better than a sno-cone on a summer day. Even better than a running, leaping Lifa hug.
The fullness of God and adoption are not selective. They are the gospel.
God, am I really living like I want this very Fullness for the orphaned and vulnerable children I encounter every day? I mean, the same fullness I want for myself?
THAT level of intimacy, being THAT known, feeling THAT celebrated?
All the best things in Life – Kingdom things - apply first to the last.
Orphans desperate for all kinds of nourishment at feedings in Africa or those who feel orphaned through isolation and estrangement in America’s hustle and bustle.
Widows raising their children’s children from a shack or widows desperate to feel some sort of presence from an empty bed and tear-soaked pillow.
The sick who don’t dare mention their status and are callused from years of being deemed untouchable or the institutionalized, socially-labeled who have never known or can’t remember what it feels like to be respected.
The criminals on the cross or the ones in the county jail.
That homeless guy on the street you pass every day on the way to work – What was his name again? I wonder if he has a family.
Do I really love them with all of me like He loves me with all of Him?
The least of these will be first.
I can’t help but think of Lifa, the very definition of “the least of these” when I met him over a year ago. God has put a new name on that 3-year old picture of the Kingdom: His Greatness.
We’ve all been estranged from our Father and the perfection communion of Family: The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And we have all been redeemed by that cross, that empty tomb and that sinless sacrifice we celebrate with new dresses and ties at the Easter sunrise service.
Just like in the Prodigal Son (Luke 15), our Daddy is waiting for us and hikes up His robe to come running to us as soon as we’re ready to come home and take our place at the dinner table… plentifully set every night, just in case.
Adoption has always been the master plan. If you haven’t yet, come home.
If you have, rest in it. Live it up! Feast on the riches of your inheritance! You are chosen and dearly loved. You belong.
We can’t come home to our very own spot at the dinner table, set by Perfect Love – and feel like a foreigner. There’s no holy etiquette except to eat like you live there. Don’t worry about which fork to use first. I’m pretty sure in Heaven we’ll just eat with our hands anyway.
Before we ever existed, the Family had perfect love and perfect intimacy. There never was and never has been room for it to get better. He’s not asking us to come make it better, to do the dishes, or to do anything at all. He just WANTS us. HE doesn’t need us. He WANTS us.
He calls us WORTHY and LOVED.
We’ve got to get this part first.
I have to get this part first.
I’m learning. I think I’ll always be learning.
If I live like an orphan, how can I extend the love and peace that comes with belonging in the Family of God?
I’m on a mission… to live like a child! His Beloved child made worthy and called valuable.
I’m on a mission… to love like a child without holding back.
I’m on a mission… to abandon my own mission and live for His.
Pray with me this week. Friday, Pastor Sthembiso, John Shaw (TTH staff), and I are going to meet Lifa’s father, Jobulani, for the first time! Lifa won’t be there, but our hope is to begin building a relationship with him that welcomes him into this story of Reconciliation and Adoption that God’s been authoring since before time ever began.
Also, pray for the details and that God will handle the red tape with us. It’s what He does anyway – so I’m calling faithfully on the prayers of His children to join in:
1. Pray for patience and efficiency as we are waiting on a donation – already well on it’s way – to make it to our USA bank account and transferred to our SA account to BUY A CAR that we can take to visit Lifa’s father.
2. Pray for registration details of the car and the roadworthy test to come easily without needing a 3 year visa finalized and without any unexpected hold-ups along the way.
3. Pray that I am able to register car and then turn in my application for my visa by Thursday so I do not have to leave the country again to renew a tourist visa.
I’ll write more details, prayer points, and info about a family fast soon!
Thank you. I love you.
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