I need to talk to you about adoption and that thing that
scares everyone about it: money.
You know, the devil hates adoption. He HATES the idea that someone would believe
the Gospel so whole-heartedly that they would live it out and adopt, and love,
and cherish, and bring into their family as a co-heir with their biological
sons and daughters a child of no blood relation to them. He hates that Christians would willingly go
through stress and anxiety and work and meetings with social workers and
financial sacrifice and struggle in order to make their own one who was not
their own. He reviles it. Because adoption is soaked in Gospel
implications. And it spells his own
doom. It reminds him of the Child born
to a scared teenage girl, adopted by an earthly father, who will one day return
to crush him. He couldn’t destroy that
child, so he will try to destroy other vulnerable children and adoptions.
The first thing he whispers into the ear of would-be
adoptive parents is: “you can’t afford it.”
Newborn and international adoptions have some big scary
dollar signs attached. And Satan wants hopeful
adoptive parents to run the other way. It’s not worth the sacrifice. The cost can seem so dark and looming that
the whole idea appears impossible. God will never provide that much. But it’s not impossible. It is exactly the kind of impractical and improbable
lifework - requiring self-sacrifice, pain, and perseverance - that God loves to
do to put the glory of the Gospel of Christ on display in this darkened world.
Now this post isn’t really for adopting families. They know all this.
I’m talking to you:
those of you not adopting. This
message is for you.
Adoptive families need you.
Adoptive families are not walking down this path in their
own strength and with (only) their own resources – or at least they shouldn’t be. God is probably not going to give them a
one-time-only gift of the Holy Spirit that allows them to conjure money out of
thin air in order to finance an adoption.
He is going to use YOU.
He is going to use you to pray. And he is going to use you to give.
Pray for strength, perseverance, and joyfulness in the
trials that come. Pray for wisdom and
clarity on moving forward in the process.
Pray for money. Adoptive families really need you to pray for money. It sounds crass, but it’s reality. I think we can sometimes have the feeling
that it’s more spiritual to not talk about money. But adoption takes money. Lots and lots of money. Money money money. Money (I'm trying to help us get past the awkwardness). Money (Is it working?).
Pray for that adoptive family to be provided the funds they need and
then ask God how much he wants you to give.
Maybe he’ll say nothing. But he
might say five dollars. Or five
hundred.
You may not be adopting, but you
have everything to do with this. You are
members of the body of Christ, and your
fellow member needs a lot of money – that they don’t have - to do a
God-honoring thing. They have stepped
out in faith, and now it’s your turn. Pray
and give.
Walk alongside your brothers and sisters in Christ and show Satan
that he will not win this battle. The
dollar signs are big, but our faith is bigger.
And together, our pockets are deep for the work of God.
The church will stand together against the culture of
death-by-abortion. The church will raise
up families who open their homes to the fatherless. The church will be a beacon of hope to women
facing crisis pregnancies. The church
will have open arms for children of all races, health, abilities,
nationalities, and backgrounds. The
church will live sacrificially. The
church will give sacrificially. Supporting
adoption – in word and prayer and deed – is a huge part of how we do this.
Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in
deed and in truth. 1 John
3:18
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