Word for Wednesday…Adoption
Note: For the Advent Season we are doing a series on the gifts of God. For these four weeks, the “Word for Wednesday” will be a follow-up from the preceding Sunday.)
He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
Ephesians 1:5-6
When I was a kid, whenever my parents would make me do something terrible, like go to bed, eat mushrooms, or clean my room, I would wonder aloud if I was adopted. After all, I reasoned, there was no way a parent would make their biological child suffer in those ways. It turns out I was wrong. As a parent myself I have discovered parents do those things to their children to “build character,” and for the sheer joy that results from exercising authority. While I was not adopted, I had a friend that was. And her parents loved her just as much as mine loved me. She also had to go to bed, eat mushrooms, and clean her room. Adopted as a baby, she had never even met her biological mother or father, and did not seem to have any interest in doing so…until she became pregnant with her first child. All of a sudden, for reasons only an adopted child could understand, she wanted to reconnect with her birth mother. One thing, though, was for certain; it wasn’t because she doubted the love her adoptive parents had for her. Every single human being is, in some sense, a child of God. Although we are not God’s biological children, we are his spiritual children. As our Creator, he is our Heavenly Father, but we have orphaned ourselves. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we have all sought to emancipate ourselves from God’s authority in our lives. Nonetheless, our independence comes at a great price, causing us to feel as I imagine an adopted child may feel at times, lost, disconnected, unloved, and unwanted. We all carry within our hearts a desire to re-establish our relationship with our Heavenly Father and regain our status as his beloved son or daughter, but we are powerless to do so. Thankfully, as Paul reminds us in letter to the Ephesians Christians, God has made our adoption possible through the gift of his Son, Jesus. Through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, we can become, once again, children of our Heavenly Father, and receive all the benefits that flow from that relationship. If you feel lost, disconnected, unloved, or unwanted this holiday season, receive this gift of adoption that God wants to give you; re-establish your relationship with your Heavenly Father. Allow him to show you whose you are, and how much he loves you. If you already know the blessings of being a child of God, share those blessings with someone who doesn’t. Tell them how they can reconnect with the God who created them.