The Orphan is...

The more you think through the reality of adoption, the more you come face to face with the spiritual realities of God as my adoptive Father and me as the former orphan who is now fully his child. The more we engage in fighting for the sake of the orphan, the more we get a picture of how God fights for us. When I read this part of the book Adopted For Life I was struck with this reality.

"Imagine for a moment that you're adopting a child. As you meet with the social worker in the last stage of the process, you're told that this twelve-year-old has been in and out of psychotherapy since he was three. He persists in burning things and attempting repeatedly to skin kittens alive. He "acts out sexually," the social worker says, although she doesn't really fill you in on what that means. She continues with a little family history. This boy's father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather all had histories of violence, ranging from spousal abuse to serial murder. Each of them ended life the same way, death by suicide - each found hanging from a rope of blankets in his respective prison cell.

Think for a minute. Would you want this child? If you did adopt him, wouldn't you keep your eye on him as he played with your other children? WOuld you watch him nervously as he looks at the butcher knife on the kitchen table? Would you leave the room as he watched a movie on television with your daughter, with the lights out?

Well, he's you. And he's me. That's what the gospel is telling us. Our birth father has fangs. And left to ourselves, we'll show ourselves to be as serpentine as he is." - Russell Moore

Yeah well, when I imagine myself as an orphan, I always think that I would be the good orphan, the one everyone would want. I would be likable and would probably only be in the orphanage due to some tragic set of circumstances that killed both my parents and many of my family members instantly and all that was left was me. And the first family that took me in would love me, because after all, I'm me. A great kid who got a raw deal in life and wound up an orphan. And they would love me, not so much because they are completely full of love, BUT because I am that lovable.

Yeah well, that is the lie I want to believe to deflect the truth about who I am as a spiritual orphan. The bible says that I was "dead in my sins" and that "while I was helpless... Christ died for me." I wasn't helpless because of all the unfortunate circumstances that "happened to me." I was helpless because of the choices I made. The orphan is me. BUT that's how great God is. He was never phased by my sinful heritage, my sinful choices, my deep brokenness. He moved, at great cost to himself, to secure my adoption.