Why We Are Adopting-Part 4 & 5

4. Adoption involves great sacrifice.

This next reason that we have for adopting is one that we would not originally have put down. However, given our experience through these many months, this truth has become a reality in our lives. Simply put, adoption involves sacrifice.

We are not wealthy people. In fact, in order to finance this call on our lives, Brad has had to work multiple jobs. However, as difficult as this has been, it has given us, yet again, further insight into our own salvation and adoption by God our Father.

When mankind fell, God did not simply wave some cosmic ‘magic wand’ and declare us righteous. If He had done that [a hypothetical impossibility], He would have violated His own divine justice. In other words, His justice and wrath had to be satisfied. Therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ took up our sins, as our representative, and suffered the eternal, infinite wrath of the Father in our place! In short, our adoption as children of God required a sacrifice of absolute perfection! There could have been no greater sacrifice.

5. International adoption reveals the glory of God.

Our final reason for adopting internationally involves our desire to reflect the glory of God, not only in our individual lives, but in our family. In a recent broadcast of the Albert Mohler Radio Program, Dr. Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary asks the question concerning transracial adoption – Is it nothing more than a form of cultural imperialism and institutional racism? This is, no doubt, a question that many have thought of, yet, few will actually admit. I, myself, have often feared that our decision to adopt trans-racially would be received and taken by some as an extension of a ‘white man’s burden’…a desire to impose our ‘superior’ white culture on ‘inferior’ and ‘primitive’ African children. Yet, this could not be further from reality. After a great deal of self-reflection I can honestly say that our desire and decision to adopt internationally was born out of a desire to reflect the glory of Almighty God in our lives and in our home.

Over the past several years, I have begun to realize the profound implications of the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity. This may seem a rather strange statement to make in the context of international adoption; however, I feel it is hugely applicable. The Apostle Paul is quite clear in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans that ‘since the creation of the world His [God’s] invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made…’ [Romans 1:20]. One such aspect of God’s divine nature is that He is Trinity. As Dr. James White, in his book, The Forgotten Trinity, states, ‘Within the One Being which is God, there exists three coequal, coeternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.’ Therefore, God’s nature is both unity [His divine nature or essence] and diversity [three distinct, coequal, coeternal Persons]. Thus, it should surprise no one that in God’s creation we observe both unity and diversity. In fact, if we are to reflect God’s glory [which is certainly a biblical pursuit], then we, too, should reflect in our lives and in our relationships, an understanding of both unity and diversity.