The Greatest Secret: How Being God's Adopted Children Changes EverythingSýnishorn

Adoption – Welcome to the intimacy of the Trinity   

For many people adoption is merely considered the third and worst way to have a child. There’s natural birth, if that doesn’t work for some there is IVF and if that doesn’t work, well, there’s always adoption. But that is not God’s approach to adoption. God was not incapable of having his own children, he was not bored or lonely. God did not adopt us because he needed it. God adopted us because we needed it. God saw that we were enslaved and vulnerable and he stepped up and became what we need him to be, a Father who would go to the ends of the earth for us, who would die for us, who would give us the world, who would put everything right. God adopted us as a wonderful act of mercy, compassion and altruistic grace. 

I began to realise how much I had misunderstood the doctrine of adoption when we legally adopted our little girl. Our three birth children were all we could have ever wanted or dreamed of. We did not set out on our fostering journey to adopt a fourth child. But when a social worker sat in my front room and said that the foster baby in my arms could not return to her birth family and might never recover from a move to a new family on top of everything else she had been through, I knew I had no choice. This child needed adopting, and she needed adopting by my family, whatever sacrifices and changes that would entail. If God was willing to go to such extraordinary lengths to include me in his family, even allowing his son Jesus to lay down his life for me, then I had to mirror that in this decision. Little did I know then that in seeking to emulate what little I understood of God’s love, I would rediscover God’s love in a whole new way. 

The family we know as God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – longs to welcome us into the intimacy of their love. They have gone to incredible lengths to ensure that the way is cleared for us to come home with him. In his letter to the Galatian church the apostle Paul ties this beautiful picture of adoption to the heart of the gospel itself. 

Adoption demonstrates the compassion of God as he welcomes lost and vulnerable children into his family. Adoption manifests the faithfulness of God that has been and will be committed to us for eternity. Adoption displays the love of God as he is willing to embrace us as his children forever. Adoption highlights the grace of God as there is nothing we have done or will do to deserve it or earn it. 

It is time to marvel as the truth begins to cascade the transforming grace of God throughout our hearts and minds. Nothing will be the same again.