In this article, Martin Crowhurst looks at the role of adoption in the Bible - and in his own life...
Our reason for going to China was to adopt a baby girl. Adoptions are happening all the time and each case and process that a family goes through differs. Whilst our experience was in many ways unique to our case, God has in His grace used it to challenge me about the depth of meaning in the Bible texts that speak about adoption, which is why I share it with you here.
At the beginning of 2001 we submitted papers asking to be allowed to adopt a baby girl from China. That sounds simple enough, but actually to meet the requirements had required us to go through a rigorous process that sometimes seemed unreasonable and even unfair. If we were not determined we could not have done it. Once the work of the application was done, we had what seemed like an intolerably long waiting period. After thirteen months of waiting we received documents allocating a child to us. We had her photograph, a simple profile and once we said, 'yes, we want to adopt this child,' we received a document giving us permission to travel to China for the express purpose of adopting this child. This official document even had included on it her photograph. This was a really exciting time for us. We wanted to go to China as soon as possible to complete the process and start living together as a family.
Was our experience unique? Think what our father God has gone through to see his family come together.
First of all, Eph 1:5, He had made a choice that he wanted to be our father and to have us, as His child. Then, to make the adoption possible he had to go through a process that was much more demanding than that which Julie and I faced. To secure the right to have us in His family required that Jesus die a painful death on the cross. At times the application process was for us like an emotional roller coaster, but what we faced can in no way compare with the way that Jesus gave himself to others, faced being misunderstood, rejected and isolated. All this despite knowing that we were not the perfect child! Rom 3:20. Then, even after the equivalent of the permission to adopt has been granted, that is the victory that Easter, the process still has to be completed. We have to actually accept God as our father and only then can start to live together and experience the father child relationship. Rom 8:23.
My experience has also made me want to compare mission with our trip to China to collect our daughter. Most of the work has already been done. Although our daughter, Hannah, didn't know or fully understand all that was happening, she was waiting for us to come. We didn't go to China with just a vague hope of adopting, we were going there to get Hannah and to start living together as a family. That's what mission is about. Going to meet and collect those that are already designated to be in God's family. Presently they are orphans. Yet the permission for them to come into God's family has already been granted, what's waiting to be done is the going and fetching them trip. For Julie and I traveling to China to collect Hannah was urgent and many people helped us so that things could happen as quickly as possible. I wonder do we each have the same passion to see and help with the mission of seeing God's family come together.