Adoption

I met my son Dylan when he was about to turn 3-years-old. He was doing puzzles in the living room of his grandparents house where he and Betsy lived. I remember, while talking to Betsy in the kitchen, stopping to ask if that was her nephew because her sister was sitting there with him. Betsy somewhat coyly corrected me saying, "No... that's my son." At that moment, as a 23-year-old bachelor, in my mind her statement abruptly ended a relationship before it began. While I enjoying my initial interaction with my future wife, the mention of her having a son left me waving the white flag internally.  

Over the next couple of hours in that first meeting I sat down with Dylan and did some puzzles, read some books and goofed off, with little idea where that day would ultimately lead all of us. That was a little over five years ago. About 9 days ago, Betsy, Dylan and I spent the morning in the Cobb County Superior Court, finalizing my adoption of Dylan. Officially, it is Dylan Rowell now. I never could have known, when I first met Dylan, how much he would change my life. When it did become apparent that life was indeed changing, I remember the prideful thoughts of what a gift I was to Dylan and to Betsy. It did not take long for God to rebuke me and remind me that they were his gift to me. The single most difficult thing I have ever had to do was make that transition from bachelor to husband and father. No other situation has done more to shine a bright light on the darkness of my own heart as well as to move me toward humility and holiness than becoming a husband and daddy. Neither has any one thing done more for me to better understand God's heart for me, than to adopt Dylan as my own son.  

I have watched Dylan, myself and our relationship evolve in significant ways: starting as a guy he knew as "James" that came over to see his mom and took him to see Spiderman 2 and to "play" with him... to me being a guy who offered instruction and discipline and who moved him from sharing a bed with mommy to the floor by the bed and eventually to his own room... to me being a guy he called "daddy" and he lived with and wrestled with every night... Then Dylan went from a boy with all the attention to sharing that attention with two little brothers and inheriting a heap of responsibility... he's gone from a cute little preschooler, to a mature, hansom young man, articulate, funny and talented. He has fully moved from a mama's boy to a daddy's boy (i think his mom would agree), and he now sets the tone for three little brothers and a slew of cousins, all who adore him and follow his lead.  

Reflecting over the last several days, the "Spirit of adoption" has been the refrain in my head. In Romans 8, Paul writes to the Christians in Rome and he tells them that "you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs-heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ..." I have been meditating on this passage for a number of days now and I have come to see more beauty in two precious doctrines: predestination and adoption.  

You might be wondering if predestination relates to this at all or if I am just a Calvinist with an agenda. Let me explain: Dylan had a life apart from me for a couple of years. He was born into Betsy's family. He's known his aunts, uncles, and grandparents on that side of the family for longer than he has known his dad. He has known his mom longer than his dad has. For his first three years, I did not exist to Dylan. He could have seen me or even met me without ever knowing who I was. But what happened on Monday changed everything... it revised his story.  

A birth certificate was issued of course in my absence 8 plus years ago and my name was not on it. Today, if you looked up Dylan's birth certificate, all evidence suggests that I was there from the beginning, and that he was mine all along. Dylan did not seek me or find me to be his dad, nor did he ask me or choose me. I chose him when I chose Betsy. I pursued them. Even after we were married, I never asked Dylan to call me "daddy". I just loved him and he eventually saw me that way. Thinking about his adoption reminds me that I didn't go looking for God, or choose God or ask him to love me. Rather, through Jesus, God pursued me, found me, chose me and loved me to point that I have loved him back.  

Through adoption, see, Dylan's whole story has been rewritten to reveal that he was always mine, and I was always his. Even though he was very well loved by his mom and many others, he was without the daily, stabilizing presence of a dad. The insecurity and confusion produced in the early part of his story finds meaning and significance because he belonged to someone all along... he just hadn't met him yet. The beginning has to be seen differently in light of the end.  

And isn't it this way in our relationship with God? When God adopts us into his family, all the pain, confusion, fear and chaos that dominated our story before Him can be seen as an intricate weaving of a complex story that was always about you becoming part of His family. You can't know that is the story being told while you are in it, but once you get to the end, or to the adoption, you can reflect back and see how everything in your life led you there, into the loving embrace of a perfect Father. In other words, if adoption is by design, then the hurt of being orphaned can be legitimately recast as the residue of design. Rejection makes sense in light of adoption.  

What I love about adoption is that it stands alone. Adoption isn't regeneration. Adoption isn't justification. It's something altogether different. Where regeneration gives me new life spiritually and justification gives me right legal standing before God, adoption more fully symbolizes the intimacy and depth of God's affections for me. I could have had Dylan live with me, provided for him, had relationship with him all without ever adopting him. Likewise, God could justify me through Christ without adopting my as his own son. But we wanted Dylan to bear our family's name. We wanted Dylan to know that his position in our family is secure. We wanted Dylan to know he has the full rights of all of our sons. We wanted Dylan to see himself as we wanted him to be seen... as our very own child, a part of who we are, a precious gift, loved and cared for, fully accepted, chosen and worth giving our very lives for.  

That's just my simple love for my son. That God's love for me is so great that He would claim my sonship is worth his own life arrests me. That he actually proved it to be true through the person and work of Jesus Christ compels me to eagerly surrender. His death and resurrection offer much more than forgiveness for sin... they offer a roof over my head, a bed at night, a seat at the table for dinner and a share in the inheritance. I have received the full rights of a son. Everything about my life identifies me with the family of God, and Him as my Father.  

We tend to associate adoption with those who have been neglected, orphaned and cast aside. We assume that children of adoption should and will have to deal with the significant pain of rejection... and so many will undoubtedly and necessarily have much to work through. But the bible teaches something completely contrary to our understanding of these things. The bible teaches us that adoption isn't about someone being rejected, it's about someone being selected. The biblical view of adoption is rooted in the idea that I am chosen, not that I am orphaned.  

The older I get and the longer I walk with Jesus the more my identity and confidence is tethered to him and the reality that through Christ, God has adopted me into his family. He chose me, initiated the adoption and sees it through to completion, all to his delight. For Dylan, as a young man now twice adopted, a child of mine and a child of God's, my hope and prayer for my son is that his identity rests securely and firmly on the fact that I and his Maker have both chosen him, and that he not prove or earn anything to either of us.  

If you are in Christ, may you remember again the beauty and wonder of being adopted as a son or daughter of God. And may the weight of his active pursuit of you wreck you today and every day. And if you don't know Jesus, may your orphaned soul surrender to that same loving pursuit of God and the glorious inheritance he offers to you through Christ... and may you be overwhelmed by the Spirit of adoption even today.

Return

Over the last few days I have looked over this short letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a young pastor that he mentored named Titus. Paul, like he did everywhere he went, planted churches when he passed through the island of Crete. His partner in the gospel and friend, Titus, was left behind and charged with the task of pastoring these churches and nurturing them along to health and maturity. Though all indicators suggest that Titus was a capable leader and pastor, he had a rough time in the early going, not unlike so many church planters in our day.  

For Titus, the biggest problem was bad doctrine and false teachers. The churches seemed to have attracted people of various backgrounds and they brought in with them other influences and ideas apart from the gospel which they were propagating among the congregation. While we don't know all that was being taught erroneously, we can see that religious, legalistic ideas had crept in from those of the "circumcision party" (which sounds like a kind of party I don't want to attend). Paul's letter was a sharp rebuke of these false teachers and a prescribed remedy to the situation for Titus which was to equip and put in place qualified leadership.  

New churches are planted... young pastors... people who don't know Jesus come... cultural influences and ideologies invade the church... false teachers preach false gospels... need for qualified, mature leadership... need to be taught sound doctrine... hmm... glad none of this is applies to us today.

I was studying 1 Corinthians recently too. Turns out that was a church community who had people getting sloshed on the communion wine like they were tailgating; they had someone sleeping with a relative; sexual immorality of all kinds was rampant; they had people suing each other in the church; there was massive division; they had people speaking in tongues and prophesying but trying to talk over each other and interrupt each other; they educated and intellectual so they were these immature Christians who thought they had it all figured out; they had idolaters; they were promoting themselves instead of Christ; they were concerned for their own glory and their own way much more than the gospel. That was the church in Corinth.  

I was just thinking, after studying through Corinthians and then Titus how funny it is that there is a major push to "get back to the way things were in the early church." My generation is the primary demographic pushing for this nostalgic return to the good old days when the church was really doing things... when the church made a difference... when the church knew how love and live in community... when the church really was the church. We are so quick to criticize the church, both local and universal. We are so quick to pass judgment on the church and dismiss the church as having failed miserably, corrupting what the early church and passed down to us, generation by generation. It's as if, in our estimation, for the first time the church is made up of sinners.  

Sometimes, I don't know what bible people are reading, particularly people in my age range. When I read the letters Paul, Peter, John and James all write to churches, I can't help but think we are mirroring the early church quite well. We are too easily influenced by our culture. We talk about many things and do far too little of them. Some affirm the gospel but are functional moralists. Others affirm the gospel but are functional relativists. Some affirm a gospel that honors prosperity as the highest ideal. Others affirm any and every gospel that you are comfortable with. Denominations and churches wrestle over issues of sexuality, doctrine, leadership, justice and many more.  

The Bible, both OT and NT, has never been more timely than right now. I am in awe of the timeless and relevance of the scriptures, even as I read the words inspired by the Holy Spirit so many generations later. It's as if God knew what He was doing. It's as if he had a plan of some kind. It's as if he wanted to have some way of speaking with us and communicating with us. It's as if he wanted to reveal something about himself and something about us. It's as if he knew he could help.  

It is my joy to place myself under the authority of the scriptures. After all this is the book that so clearly lays out the real and true Gospel: "For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." (Titus 3:3-7) 

Our sin is met by His kindness, not because we're good, but because he is good, and we are made new by the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection, offering us hope for a new life now and eternal life with him. That is truly good news in and of itself. It is in fact, the best news. We like to add to that gospel, like a an amendment to a bill, and in so doing we empty the gospel of it's power. 

There are other letters to other churches about other problems and if you read them, it seems we are actually too much like the early church. Maybe Paul's letter to Titus and his effort to bring order to the confusion caused in those churches in Crete has some value for you and me and the churches around us today. Tim Keller rightly says, "the gospel is not the ABC's of our faith, it's the A through Z of our faith." Rather than returning to the idea of the early church which we have constructed in our imaginations, perhaps we should instead return to the message of those who planted the early churches... the message entrusted to them by the one who is reconciling everything back to God... the transforming message of the Gospel.

Perseverance

It's just been one of those seasons in life that can only be described as "one of those..." People always say things like "it's been one of those days", or "it's just one of those things". We all know what they are really saying is "it's one of those things that I would really like to not go through again."

So, I haven't blogged since April 18, I think. I only know that because it was the morning after my fourth son, Daniel, was born. In many ways, this has been a wonderful few months as our family has been changed by the recent addition. That part has been pure joy. The other stuff has been that fake farting noise you make when you stick out your tongue and blow. 

I don't know if the rest of you have noticed, but it has become increasingly evident to me that this life can be frustrating. Even when things are going well there seems to be a corresponding struggle. You have a baby but you lose your sleep. You get your dream job but the you lose your family. You get married but you feel like you lose your identity. You get your dream house but you now have to clean it... all of it. There are very few things in life that allow for pure joy. 

Then there are life's outright difficulties. Your wife has a miscarriage. You suffer the loss of a loved one. You suffer through a painful divorce. Cancer ravages your body. You lose your job. You get foreclosed on. Life is full of frustration, sadness and trial.

Jesus had a little brother named James who suggests that we should view trials as pure joy. That notion is elusive at best and laughable or devastating at worst. We struggle just to view blessing with pure joy. Trials? We tend to view those with contempt. James' perspective is nothing short of revolutionary. 

Trials are relative to each of us. I would suggest that if it is a trial for you than you should accept it as such, rather than allowing the significance of someone else's trial to somehow invalidate your own. A trial could be an overheated minivan full of kids en route from Georgia to Kentucky, or it can be the death of your grandmother that was the reason for making that same trip. A trial can be two operations and three days in the hospital with kidney stones and something called a three-way catheter, or it can be your son falling out of his bunk bed and breaking his collar bone. A trial can be 18 months with your house on the market with no end in sight, or it can be a storm rolling through your area and taking a few trees down. A trial can be watching a married couple you love stop loving each other, or it could be the despair of watching people you love turn there back on Jesus for an empty way of life. A trial can be much bigger than these... and much smaller. Some trials are momentary, some are protracted. That's why James says to consider it pure joy when you face trials of "many kinds". He knows the human proclivity toward frustration and dissatisfaction. 

Trials, it would seem, are a means for our flesh to prey on our souls in order to foster frustration, sanction sin, and jettison the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet James says, counterintuitively, that trials should be viewed through the lens of joy, in the name of something called perseverance, which finishes it's work. Oh, goody... tell me where to sign. 

You can look long and hard to find a verse that says to develop perseverance through success and comfort, but you won't find it in the Christian bible... I've looked. It is only formed on the anvil of trials. If you are like me, you start thinking about thrift store perseverance. I don't necessarily want top of the line, name brand perseverance. I would be completely content with black market or knock off perseverance. But as in everything, you get what you pay for.

The truth is, to view trials through the lens of joy you have to be looking through the scope of eternity. Otherwise, sickness, loss, death, unemployment, pain, loneliness, failure, lack, conflict, and all the frustrations of life are simply that... frustrations. But when they are paraded under the banner of the Gospel, these things are overwhelmed and redeemed by resurrection. When you think about it, perseverance is THE essential character trait for the Christian. Other than faith, which all Christians have in some measure because they are saved by grace through faith, nothing is of more value than perseverance.

If you want to have a great marriage, you have to have perseverance. If you want to raise children who love Jesus, you have to have perseverance. If you want to succeed in any career field, you have to have perseverance. If you want to bear fruit in ministry for the rest of your life, you have to have perseverance. If you want healthy relationships, you have to have perseverance. If you want to be judged at Jesus' death rather than at your own death, you have to have perseverance. All of these things will have their share of frustration... but it's only for a little while. And then Jesus will come and reclaim and restore this world and our lives to their original intent, and frustrations and striving will cease. Frustration will yield to freedom. Sorrow will yield to laughter. Conflict will yield to peace. Death will be swallowed up by life. Until then, consider it all joy and persevere.

After all, this life?... it's just one of those things. It's good to be reminded we don't have to do it again.