Adoption through Christ – His Love for us

What does it mean to be adopted? I looked up the definition in the dictionary and it says this:

To Adopt: to take up and make one’s own; to take by choice into a relationship.

Here is Ephesians, it says we are adopted into God’s family. I put The Message in there, too, because I like how it’s written.

Ephesians 1:3-6 (NIV) "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves."

Ephesians 1:3-6 (The Message) "How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He's the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him. Long before he laid down earth's foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. Long, long ago he decided to adopt us into his family through Jesus Christ. (What pleasure he took in planning this!) He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son."

Let me tell you about adopting our son. It is such a miracle that we have Josiah. Out of the 143 million orphans in the world, God chose Josiah to be our son. It is a miracle that we decided to adopt at the right time and had the right amount of money at the right time and got all the paperwork done as quickly as we did. We started the adoption process in May 2007. Josiah was born in June 2007 and we got his referral in July 2007. At the end of December 2007, the country stopped all new adoptions. And at that point we didn’t know what would happen but they let all adoptions that were already in process continue. In April 2008, we were able to go and pick him up. Since the country shut down adoptions while we were still waiting for Josiah, a lot of people had longer wait times and some are even still waiting on their children. We were so blessed all the way through the process.

When we got his referral, it was very unexpected. We didn’t even have our paperwork finished. We were called and they sent an email with some medical information which was in Spanish and 3 pictures. We knew he was healthy and that he was only a couple weeks old. At that point, we had to say yes, we want him, or no, we don’t. We didn’t have any doubts, he was our boy. We waited 10 long months with his picture on our frig. It seemed like forever! We can’t imagine not having him in our family. Our hearts are just filled with love for him.

I think about our next adoption a lot. The waiting is the hardest part by far! I would have never thought that I’d be going to china any time during my life. It’s a little scary, yes, but we’d do it in a heartbeat. We don’t know who our daughter is yet but we will travel to the other side of the world for her without a second thought.

Through this process, I understand a little more what God means when he said he adopted us as His sons and daughters. He chose us before the creation of the world. I don’t know who my daughter is but I love her already. I know that God is going to match us up and that He is taking care of her. And just like our kids have full rights as our children, we have full rights and are joint heirs with Jesus. God’s decision to do that for us was based in love. He has always loved us. He has loved us even though we are selfish and we don’t love him and others like we should. We don’t deserve it but he freely gives to us anyway because we are His sons and daughters.

In the light of this love, how can we not work hard every day loving others? I guess, if we are in deep relationship with Him, we will know better how love and His love should flow through us more naturally. It’s so important to be in the Word, memorizing scripture and in prayer. I wish it wasn’t so hard to do!

Seeing Others as God Sees Them

Another way to become more loving is to see people through God's eyes. When we focus on the good in people, it becomes a little easier to be loving towards them. For example, when someone is rude to me on the phone, instead of assuming he or she is just a rude and horrible person who has it in for me I can assume that he or she is having a bad day and is in need of some kindness and encouragement.

We can attribute good motives to our spouses and family members instead of assuming they are doing things to spite us or get to us. That may sound silly, but I often assume bad motives without even realizing it. I assume my kids aren't listening or obeying out of spite, just because I said it. Maybe at times this is true, but it is much more helpful to my attitude to assume that they just didn't hear me or that they got distracted by something else.

C.S. Lewis says it well in The Weight of Glory:

"It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burdern of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back... It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one of these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. ... [I]t is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors."

I know this is a long quote, but I hope you all read it carefully. Lewis is saying that we will all live for eternity in one form or another. Either we will spend eternity in glory in the presence of God or we will spend eternity removed from God's presence in absolute horror. Everyone we meet, come across, deal with, and love are in that same position. And we can influence them for the better simply by the way we treat them in everyday interactions. When we are loving towards others, we are encouraging them along the path of glory and greatness. When we are not loving, we are perhaps pushing them down the path towards horror and eternal separation from God.

When we look at our responsibility to be loving from this standpoint, doesn't it seem all that much more important a task? Don't we owe it to others and to our God, who has been so loving towards us, to treat others with that same love? It is as simple as a smile or a kind word. It is in the way we look at others and how we talk about them when they aren't present. It is in how helpful we can be to strangers and those in our own families. Can we live up to this challenge? I hope so! With God's help and our continuing efforts, I think we can.

Getting to Know Yourself

I am learning that in order to be more loving towards others, I need to get to know myself a little better in certain ways. I'm not advocating that we all become self-centered and introspective. Clearly, that is not what love is all about, but I think a little self-awareness is necessary to stop unloving habits and moods and encourage loving actions.

Let me give you an example to help explain what I mean. For me, there are certain times of day that trigger unloving attitudes. In the morning before I have my coffee, I try very hard to be loving to my kids and husband, but this is a time of day that I struggle the most. When I see this about myself and realize that I tend to be unloving at this time of day, I can look for ways around my natural inclinations so it's not as hard to be loving. I can get up a little earlier (very hard for me!) so I can have coffee by myself before my family gets up. An easy, but effective, solution.

It's not always easy to get away or remove myself from a situation so that I can have a moment to course-correct and get my mind and heart in a different place, but it's important that I at least try. And the effort is easier when I learn what those triggers for me are. When I see it coming, I can take some time, whether that is built into my day as a regular thing or just sneaking off for a few minutes, to read a Bible verse or passage, pray, or just deliberately put my thoughts on something better. In recognizing these things about ourselves and putting systems in place to deal with them, we can become more loving people overall.

What are some of your "triggers"? What ways have you come up with to deal with them?

Hearing Problems

Sometimes I swear my kids have hearing problems. And everyone else around me, too. There are days, today being one of them, when it seems that everyone is deaf to the sound of my voice. I repeat everything several times to no avail. I'm pretty sure this is common among parents of young children! By the end of the day, I am so frustrated and a little angry.

And I wonder, how often do I make God feel this way about me?? How often am I so distracted by my day and the things I put in my life that I don't hear Him or just don't pay attention? When I think about it like this, in light of my frustration, it saddens and convicts me. I want to be a person who listens. Who is ready to listen. Who is paying attention. God has something He needs and wants me to hear. I want to be there to hear it and respond!

Encouragement for Mothers

This post is geared towards mothers. I don't mean to leave anyone else out, but I thought this was too good not to share. This is a passage from Keri Wyatt Kent's book, God's Whisper in a Mother's Chaos (pages 62 and 63). Prior to this passage, she is talking about resetting our benchmarks, the ones by which we measure our spiritual "success." Instead of dwelling on guilt over not getting enough quiet time or spending as much time in prayer as we always thought we should, we need to measure our spiritual success by things like the fruits of the spirit and whether we are growing. And little things count too!

"This is the good news for mothers: the grungy, seemingly insignificant serving you do - cleaning up messes, wiping noses (and other body parts), preparing meals, dressing, undressing and bathing your kids - all of these things count in God's eyes. You are engaging fully in the discipline of service. If you can begin to view it as such, every little part of your day can be a way to connect with God.

"And all the parts of mothering that you love, like the way they fly into your arms when you get home from work or cuddling with a bedtime story or drying their tears, those count too. They please the heart of God.

"And God is not deducting points on some giant tally sheet in heaven because you missed your 'quiet time.' He's watching the way you trim the crust off the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and cut it in triangles because that's how your toddler likes it, and he's saying, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.'"

Battling a Bad Attitude

I have been battling a bad attitude lately. And especially today. It seems that once I have a bad attitude, or am in a bad mood, it is so hard for me to break out of it. It sours everything I do and all of my interactions, particularly with my husband and kids. I admit that this particular bad attitude began with a little Valentine's Day disappointment. Now, I should say at this point that my husband was wonderful to me yesterday and it was an overall good day. The problem was probably in my expectations, which were fairly high apparently and not quite met. Hence, the disappointment and bad attitude.

I awoke with the same bad attitude and dealt with it initially by trying to avoid everyone this morning. Easier said that done in a house with two preschoolers! I was not very kind to my kids and was short with my husband. Not my proudest moments, for sure.

As the morning went on and I tried to have a better attitude by will power alone (without success, I might add), I began to think about what we have been studying - love. And how our love towards others should not depend on what we get from them. I needed a change of focus from what I felt had been missed. Instead, I needed to focus on God. When I feel unloved here on earth, I can always count on the love of God. I began to think about verses I've studied in the course of doing this blog and thinking about God's expression of love through the sacrifice of His son. And it worked!

If you sense a bit of surprise, you would be right! I am ashamed to admit that I didn't actually think this would work to change my attitude. But it did. I still struggled through the rest of my day to keep my attitude in check, but it was exactly the break that I needed. I hope that I am not the only one getting the point here. We can break the cycle of disappointment, feeling unloved, and just plain being in a bad mood by changing our focus. And we can change our focus by dwelling on God and Scripture. By filling our minds (and our hearts) with the truths we know from the Bible. I purposefully turned my mind to God and His truth and my emotions eventually followed. I am so glad that I learned this lesson today and I hope that I will remember it the next time my bad attitude hits.

I also have to admit that in the past, I would have taken out my V-day disappointment by criticizing my husband and telling him exactly what I thought he did wrong. And I can say from experience that it doesn't help! It only makes everyone feel badly. God is changing my heart and I have his Word and, in part, this study to thank for it.

If you all have had "breakthroughs" or have learned something through our study so far, I would love to hear about it!

The holiday for love

As we head into valentine's day this weekend, we naturally think of our husbands (or wives). Here is a devotion on showing love to our spouse.

Proverbs 31 - Love, Respect and Admiration