Fulfilling the Great Commission

Once you are truly aware of how God feels about something, regardless of the topic, you are called to obey. When you know to do good, and don't, God calls it sin. Sometimes with adoption in particular, obedience comes in the form of actually bringing a child (or more) into your home, and sometimes obedience means supporting those who are bringing a child into their home. I mean, none of us would expect someone in their 80's to suddenly say "that means I have to adopt". Practicality here. BUT, maybe that same 80 yr old could make a bigger eternal impact with their money than spending it on lottery tickets if they'd just put it towards a child's life instead. If everyone who doesn't chose to adopt consistently gave just $10 a mth towards another family's adoption, children could be ransomed from these orphanages a whole lot faster. Most of us can find an extra $10/mth. Most of us could find an extra $100/mth if we're really honest with ourselves and our budgets. If someone took one of our birth children and said they were going to be held captive half way around the world in conditions such as those in many orphanages today, and we wouldn't get them back until we'd filled out a stack of paperwork 5 ft high, and raised a $25K ransom for them, we'd waste no sleep or effort to get our child back in as little time as possible. Does an orphan mean any less to God than our birth children? Those orphans ARE someone's child. Someone labored to bring them into this life, even if later they put them in an orphanage where they thought the child would have a better life than what they could provide. That's love. It is rare that a mother would abandon a child without any emotion. They do it because they feel helpless to provide what the child needs. We, in the western world, live in prosperity compared to most of the rest of the world. We just tell ourselves we are poor and unable to do something. Even if there are restrictions that prevent us from adopting, such as those placed on us by social services, or physical limitations, etc. we can all do something. We are all called to help the widows and orphans. But that "helping" can look different to each family. For some, it's adoption. For some, it's financially supporting an adoptive family. For some, it's respite care/babysitting for the adoptive family. For some, who literally gave their last two mites, it's faith-filled prayer. But giving that doesn't really cost you anything, giving that makes no difference in your life, means little to God compared to sacrificial giving to obey what He's called us all to do.


Churches promote missionaries, and encourage financial support of them. The congregations look at them as people of great faith, who have it all together. And I know that they go through a lot of heart training and practical training before they fly off the the mission field somewhere. No one criticizes missionaries for obeying God's call in that way. Yet, the church turns its back (not always, but often) on families that adopt for reasons other than infertility, especially the larger the family one has before the adoption. The church in general acts like the only reason they are adopting is to make their family bigger, never understanding the heart of obedience behind it. I don't know of one single family who has ever adopted an orphan for the sole purpose of making their family bigger. Every one of them has made huge sacrifices to give a family to a child that someone else birthed. The global church has failed first in supporting the parents who felt it necessary to relinquish these children, and second, the church has failed in supporting the parents who redeem these children with a lot of sweat and tears.


And yet we as a church should know better. We should understand. We were all orphans before God sacrificed His only Son to redeem us out of satan's orphanage where we lingered without purpose or significance, waiting for death to overtake us. God gave the highest sacrifice there is to rescue us. Aren't we supposed to do as our Heavenly Father did? Or are we going to spend our life blaming God for all the orphans who died alone without the love of a parent? I refuse to stand there someday and have to give an account to God for spending my money and efforts on frivolous things when a fatherless child is waiting for the loving leadership of a father and mother to lead him or her to Jesus through the practical support they could have given. And I don't believe that we're not all "called" to reach out to orphans or widows. And I don't believe that God will just poof the money for an adoption if we aren't ready for it. But I do believe that the majority of adoptive families don't have their funds lines up & all their ducks in a row before they suddenly "feel called" to adopt. Adoption is more than just having the money. There's a lot of heart preparation that happens before a family is ready to adopt. I think that's where people mistake "not feeling called". It's not that they aren't called, it's that they're not yet "trained". God has more preparation to do with us before He is going to hand the funds to us to accomplish an adoption. Every family I know who has adopted an orphan spent many months, even years, in "heart school", then a season of the practical training (lots of research, reading, group discussions, being mentored by those who have gone before them, and practical preparation), before they stepped out on faith to adopt. When someone announces that they are pursuing adoption, most people never consider all the "training" that went into this pursuit long beforehand.


Just as you can obey the Great Commission in the most remote places on earth as you can in your own living room by raising up Kingdom warriors, you can also fulfill the Great Commission by bringing a fatherless orphan into your home and giving them a family, or visiting a widow and helping her with her practical needs. Along with keeping yourself unspotted from the world's ways, THAT is pure and undefiled religion to God. I refuse to stand before God someday and say I attempted to worship Him with impure and defiled religion because I turned my heart away from those who have been widowed or orphaned.


~Michelle