UnchainedSample

Remember

Adoption is a beautiful gospel picture.

A couple in our church adopted a brother and sister from an orphanage in Mexico. Unfortunately, right when they were about to bring their children home, the two governments got involved and did what governments tend to do—royally messed things up. The entire adoption, which should have been smooth sailing, ground to a screeching halt. Their kids were trapped in Mexico and not just for a few weeks. It took years to get them home.

These lonely, vulnerable little children had parents they couldn’t see. That’s where our situation is the same as these two little kids’. We are trapped here, and our dad is somewhere else. There is a period of time between when we are adopted and when we are with our Father. So what do we do in the in between? How do we survive? Paul said, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.”

God sent someone to be with us.

That’s what my friends did. They hired someone to stay with their children. They sent a couple they trusted to live with their children in Mexico. Each and every day, this couple would tell the children about their parents and how much the parents longed to be with them. The couple would show them pictures and tell them stories. They would make their home with these orphan children, and their very presence would point them to the kids’ adoptive parents.

This is what the Holy Spirit does in our lives. He takes up residence with us to remind us we are not alone and that one day we will be with our Father. Jesus said as much to His disciples when He declared:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. (John 14:16-18)