A Spiritual Pause . . .

Here we are just over 5 weeks out from one of the most special and exciting adventures Amy and I have ever been on.  I often get asked "what made you want to adopt?".  The answer isn't simple.  We do have a worldwide orphan problem.  More people really should consider adoption . . . but that's not our main motivation.  Amy and I have biological kids and nothing that we currently know would prevent us from having more . . . so adopting isn't the only way we can add to our family.  The answer is much deeper.  That makes it hard to explain in a quick conversation.  Sometimes, I take one of the easy answers.  But the real answer is much better.  Good thing for you this isn't a quick pass-you-by conversation.  It's a blog . . . and I get to do all the talkin :)

Spiritual molding and divine timing in our lives, some before Amy and I even met, had let us to the other side of the world.  To China.  We went there to find a specific little boy, Wei Min Han.  He had never seen us and we had only seen pictures of him, but our plan couldn't have been more simple.  Our plan was to make him ours.  This wasn't a test drive.  Not a "let's see how he does with us".  This was a "let's get our son home" trip.  You see . . . we knew he had a bilateral cleft lip and palate.  We knew he would be stinky.  We knew he would be small.  We knew there would be challenges in his life.  None of those things mattered.  Our adoption agency sent us a picture of a child that didn't have a mom and dad and we made a decision to love him. 

This isn't just any kind of love.  This isn't a "you'll owe me later" or "where is my thank you?" kind of love.  We made a decision to love him the same way we love our biological children.  While hair, eyes, height, etc may all be different . . . this is a love that sees no difference in the way it loves Samuel or Micah or Elijah.  Samuel is ours, he is a Mangels.

People often ask if I look forward to the day Samuel realizes the life he has and the life he avoided.  Let me tell you that I do.  But I might not look forward to what most people think.  I will certainly enjoy hearing how glad he is to be where he is.  But there is something that I am more excited about . . . I can't wait to tell him that just like he was adopted, God adopted his children too.

Talking about Ephesians 1, John Piper said, "When God was thinking about how to create a universe, what was centrally driving him was, how can I create a universe in which My grace would be put on display most beautifully.  His answer was, I will predestine people for adoption."

Mankind chose not to submit to God, but instead to rebel against God.  See, our sin has left us as spiritual orphans.  We want to rule our own lives.  Our rebellion creates a problem.  It keeps us from entering heaven when we die to dwell with our Creator.  But our Creator made a decision to love us anyway.  He looked past the dirt and stink of sin and saw His beautiful creation.  But a perfect Holy God and sinful man together . . . that can't be.  There must be a sacrifice . . . God's only son, Jesus.  Jesus came to earth and led a faultless, blameless, perfect life in order to become the sacrifice for my rebellion against God.  Jesus's death on the cross washed away the stain of my rebellion.  His death is my salvation.  After placing my faith in Jesus and His death for my eternal salvation . . . I became an heir to God's kingdom.  I became a part of God's eternal family.  Now when God sees me . . . he sees Jesus . . . when He sees me . . . he sees his own.

God chose to love me.  He chose to love me before I even knew He existed.  He loves me through all my faults.  He loves me through all my challenges.  The same way we were folded into God's family, Samuel was folded into ours. We want people to see God's story in our story.  We want people to see God's glory and grace when they see us.  This is our calling to adopt . . .