The Wrong Question?

 “Adoption is God’s will. It says so throughout the New Testament, and boy, should we be glad! That’s how we were brought into the kingdom and made heirs of the Most High. Our task in the church is to walk with people as they wrestle with God’s will and how it intersects with their lives. Maybe the question that we should be giving families an opportunity to wrestle with is: Why shouldn’t I adopt? If we know that adoption is God’s revealed will, and adoption is His plan A for both bringing us into the kingdom and caring for orphans, then why shouldn’t we assume that adoption is God’s will for all Christian families and then look for signs that God isn’t leading us to adopt?”  --  Tony Merida and Rick Morton in “Orphanology”

Consider these numbers:

It is estimated that there are 335,000 Christian churches in the U.S. There are approximately 125,000 children available for adoption in the U.S. foster care system. If only one family from only 37% of those 335,000 churches would hear God's calling and adopt from foster care there would be no more children waiting for families in the United States.

There are between 143 million and 147 million orphans worldwide. There are over 224 million professing Christians in the United States, worshiping in churches ranging from only a handful of members to thousands of worshipers each Sunday. If only1/4 of those Christians would hear God speaking and adopt a child internationally the worldwide orphan crisis would be drastically improved. If 1/2 of them would adopt, the number of orphans worldwide would be decreased by almost 80%!

I know when God began speaking to our family about adoption we had many "logical" reasons why we should not, or could not, adopt. If we look at our lives from the world's perspective, there are reasons why adopting makes no sense for our family. We understand that. But we also know that God sometimes often asks us to do things that do not make any sense if you look at them from the world's perspective. Our challenge as Christians is to look at things from God's perspective.

If God was asking you to adopt, would you hear Him? Or would you filter His instructions through the world's viewpoint? Would your first question be "What does God think about this?" or would it be "What would the world/my family/my friends think about this?"

We heard many, many hurtful comments when we first announced our plans to adopt. People told us "You have too many kids already."(Uhhh, O.K...); "You probably should get your marriage straightened out before you think about adopting." (Seriously?? I guess yours is perfect? Maybe you could give us some classes.); "Aren't you afraid about how much it costs?" (Yes!); "You don't care about the kids you already have if you are willing to bring a special needs child into your home." (We care enough about the children we already have to show them the value that God places on EVERY human being. And if we were pregnant with a special needs child would you say that we shouldn't bring him/her into the world because of the effect it would have on the children we already have?); "Your 2 year old seems to have some behavior problems. Do you think you are really a capable parent?" (Uhhh. She's TWO. Have you ever heard of the terrible twos?). And the list went on.

I realize that some of the comments were made out of concern for us and our family and I appreciate that very much. But having been on the opposite side of the fence in the past I know for sure that many of these comments were made by people who were feeling the prick of God's conviction and were using our family as a way of voicing the reasons that they felt prevented THEM from adopting.

Have you ever said "I could never adopt because of 'X'"? Maybe your X is money. Maybe it is an uncertain job situation. Maybe it is the age of other children in the home. The possibilities are almost endless. But I can tell you for sure that if you are thinking about adopting there is a good reason for it (it's called GOD) and if you find yourself making a list of all the reasons why you can't adopt you need to put all of that at God's feet in prayer. I am speaking from experience!! I have been there and I understand the fear that can come with doing something that makes very little sense from a practical standpoint. Adopting is tiring, expensive and hard. But it is what God wants us to do to care for the least of these.

Are we as a church asking the right question? Perhaps we should be asking "Is God showing me clear reasons why I should NOT adopt?" as opposed to waiting for God to "call" us to adopt. Too often that "call" can get clouded by our own reasoning until we no longer hear Him speaking.