One thing that warms my heart is seeing a baby interact and bond with his or her mother. Having a child is a wonderful privilege, and within which a natural God-ordained bond occurs. It is not hard to see that bond as mom and baby are together. This love is the purest state that we will see here on earth. That could be a taste of what our relationships in heaven will be like. This relationship, though, does not best reflect the relationship that we have with our Lord here on the earth. We have been adopted into His wonderful family.
I have worked in a children’s home in the central part of Mexico for over 20 years. I live with and see children who have been, for many reasons, broken off from this beautiful parent-child scenario. Children long to be bonded with that pure love mentioned above, but many go through life with an emptiness or a feeling of being unloved. True unconditional love that has its roots in God’s word can pass through that hurting place in their hearts, creating solid ground for these little ones to go on in life.
Many homes have this bond broken because of errors on the part of the parents. These broken homes leave children with very damaged little hearts. Some of these children remain in broken homes, with a relative, or in an institution. These options can rarely offer that heavenly bond that exists in a loving, stable home. A few of these children have the opportunity of adoption. This is where the similarities start when we talk about a relationship with God.
The adoption process starts with a couple or maybe a person who is seeking to adopt a child. They have thought it through and counted the cost as they came to their decision to adopt. The desire and love overshadow the challenges of the adoption issue. A deep desire is seen within the adopting parents to have their child. Love is present for their yet unseen or even unknown child. An unconditional love has been born and is now ready to grow.
Most of the adoptable children do not really know love or understand what it is to be part of a loving family. Their concepts of love are distorted. Their lives are full of fear, rejection, and pain. Still, a match is made and the process works through to the end, with the result of a child being given the gift of a new loving home. Now, that new-born unconditional love has come together with an unloved child.
This should be like a “match made in heaven” when that so desperately-needing-of-love child comes into that very thing that he or she is looking for, but sadly it is often a very difficult road that this new family must travel. Curiously, accepting being loved is a difficult thing.
Does this sound to you like our relationship with God? God is like the adopting parent who is so anxious to receive his or her new precious gift. We are like the adopted child who struggles with understanding God’s love. Many reject something so much better and stay in their emptiness. God has offered us unconditional love. We receive it through God’s gift of faith, or we reject it in unbelief.
Being adopted is not cutting off the old. It is something new added that makes life so much better.
Russ Krube has dedicated his life to a children’s home in Tepic, Mexico since 1989. Learn more at Russ’s blog.