Here We Go! Finding All in Him

We’re headed to Ethiopia this weekend!

For some time, we’ve been expecting the call to travel, but when it came this morning we still found ourselves overwhelmed.

We remember filling out the initial paperwork and putting it in the mailbox on March 10 last year. Now, here we are. A week from today, our son will be with us.

Today has been filled with frenzied phone calls, rearranged schedules, and even a quick trip to the hospital. In the midst of all the excitement, Amy fell down the stairs of our den and sprained her ankle. We are confident that she is going to live, but we’re not sure what Benjamin is going to think about that huge boot-like contraption on mommy’s foot when he first sees her.

When you’re in the process of adoption, lots of things go through your mind. Nine couples in our church are currently somewhere in the process of adoption! Our friends, Jody and Shannon Stivers got their son, A.J. today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Needless to say, adoption is on our minds a lot these days.

Our adoption process has taught us a lot. While we have learned much about adoption and orphans and the needs of children, we have been overwhelmed by how God has used this process to draw us closer to himself and to show us more of Who he is.

Truly, this whole deal has been a lot more about God than it has been about Benjamin. God has given us a great love for Benjamin, but he has given us a greater love for himself.

Our adoption journey has caused us to realize the gospel in a way that otherwise we probably would have never known. Adoption is one of the greatest earthly pictures of the gospel.

God took the initiative, set his affection on us, came to us, revealed himself to us and rescued us. We “…once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds," but Christ has “…now reconciled [us] in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present [us] holy and blameless and above reproach before him...” (Colossians 1:21-22). Romans 8:15 has grabbed us, and we don’t think we’ll ever read over that verse as quickly as we did before—“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry ‘Abba! Father!'”

Sometimes God doesn’t work the way you thought he would. Sometimes he does not answer our prayers the way we thought he would answer them. He works and he answers prayers better than we ever could imagine.

John Newton put it this way back in 1779:

I asked the Lord that I might grow
in faith and love and every grace,
might more of His salvation know
and seek more earnestly His face.

‘Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
and He I trust has answered prayer,
but it has been in such a way
as almost drove me to despair.

I hoped that in some favored hour
at once He’d answer my request
and by His love’s constraining power
subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of this He made me feel
the hidden evils of my heart
and let the angry powers of Hell
assault my soul in every part.

Yea more with His own hand He seemed
intent to aggravate my woe,
crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
humbled my heart, and laid me low.

“Lord, why is this,” I trembling cried;
“Wilt Thou pursue Thy worm to death?”
“Tis in this way,” the Lord replied,
“I answer prayer for grace and faith.”

“These inward trials I employ
from self and pride to set thee free,
and break Thy schemes of earthly joy
that thou may’st find thy all in Me.

We're going to get Benjamin this weekend--but we realize that we're getting a lot more than we ever imagined.

Christ is all.