Adoption Update: Guided Where I Go

Here’s the email update that Cindi sent out today regarding our adoption and the other families’ court cases that were scheduled for this past Friday, September 15:

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Thank you so much to all of you who prayed for the court cases on the 15th.  Several people told me that they were praying all day and we don’t doubt that the Lord was listening. He has answered in His own unique way yet again…

Here is the email we received about what happened:

Greetings!

 

When they went to court this morning, the judge said he was not hearing cases today, so they will reschedule.  He had other mattters taking priority over all else in his court today.  They are hopeful for another day next week… I will update you when I receive any more information.

We are still confident in the Lord’s goodness as we wait.  Judah is turning 9 months old on Wednesday and we are amazed at how much love the Lord has given us for someone who has been alive for such a short amount of time!

In the meantime, the woman who runs ABC is going to try to get our custody papers signed this week.  We have to have those to get our last form approved.  We only have about 50 more days to turn it in before we get denied so she is going to plead with him to sign the papers for us.  Please be in prayer for that.

We are told that we should “likely” be flying over in late October/early November… we just don’t know if we will be flying over there to get a piece of paper (those custody papers if the magistrate won’t sign them) or Judah.  Gunner and I obviously would love to be able to bring Judah home then but either way the Lord is faithful and unchanging.

Please feel free to pass this on to anyone and everyone :)

The Lord is good.

cindi (and Gunner)

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For some reason, as I post this, I am reminded of two hymns: Jesus, I Am Resting, Resting and Father, I Know That All My Life.  The second, by Anna Laetitia Waring, is particularly precious, and it’s certainly applicable in this situation.  I think you have to hear it sung to truly appreciate it, but I think it penetrates nonetheless.  It’s very biblical and very personal.  I’ve always thought that it’s quite profound and perceptive.  Maybe that’s because it is, or maybe it just strikes a spiritual nerve with me.  Either way, here are five of the verses.  If you want to pray something for Cindi and me, please pray this:

Father, I know that all my life
Is portioned out for me,
And the changes that are sure to come,
I do not fear to see;
But I ask Thee for a present mind
Intent on pleasing Thee.

I would not have the restless will
That hurries to and fro,
Seeking for some great thing to do
Or secret thing to know;
I would be treated as a child,
And guided where I go.

So I ask Thee for the daily strength,
To none that ask denied,
And a mind to blend with outward life
While keeping at Thy side;
Content to fill a little space,
If Thou be glorified.

And if some things I do not ask,
In my cup of blessing be,
I would have my spirit filled the more
With grateful love to Thee –
More careful — not to serve Thee much,
But to please Thee perfectly.

In a service which Thy will appoints,
There are no bonds for me,
For my inmost heart is taught “the truth”
That makes Thy children “free;”
And a life of self-renouncing love
Is a life of liberty.

In Praise of My Wife

Cindi and I were going to spend some time together at 9:00 tonight after I finished my reading for tomorrow morning’s seminary class (Apologetics & Evangelism).  I was pretty baked, though, after a long week and an hour and a half of Cornelius Van Til and other philosophically-oriented writers.  She could tell, so she asked me how I was feeling.  Basically overwhelmed with details, I answered.  One of the small-but-heavy details was the high-alert disaster happening on the desk in my study.  I know I never have a right or a reason to worry, but being relentlessly surrounded by a veritable mound of seemingly rhymeless and reasonless paperwork doesn’t help me not be anxious.  Maybe that’s an overly colorful picture of the disorganization that’s been on my desk the past few weeks, but it’s definitely not an exaggeration of how I felt about it.

Cindi offered to help me organize it.  At first I said no, because that’s not how I wanted to spend our time together.  I’m a workaholic to the core, and I’m in a constant battle against the urge to spend every waking minute making myself busy.  But Cindi was persistent, so into my study we went.  The process went about twenty times faster than it would’ve if I was doing it myself, because Cindi is a wise, quick, practical, realistic decision-maker while I’m an overly-detailed, indecisive pack-rat who wants to have a perfect system of organization for everything and who can’t find the wherewithal to give up year-old sermon notes because I’m afraid of losing what I learned (and have probably since forgotten) about that particular sermon.

I’m now typing this post from a gloriously-clean and undistracting desk, and life all of a sudden seems much simpler.  It’s not that my life responsibilities shrank all of a sudden.  It’s just that at least now I can focus on them more easily.

The lesson in all of this is not that our main weapon in battling anxiety is to organize our lives better, because that would be terribly shallow and short-term.  The lesson is how wonderful my wife is.  When I was feeling overwhelmed, she could’ve rightfully pointed out any number of things that I could improve on in life; she could’ve been frustrated that I was absorbed with weariness and responsibilities instead of our time together; she could’ve even said graciously, “I know you have a lot going on; go ahead and do what you need to do.”  But she did better than all of these.  She said, “How can I help you?”  Then she identified a practical area where she could help me, knowing that I’m not good at that particular thing and that she is.  Then she helped me stay on task and made sure that she stayed until the job was done.

Young women, be like my wife.  Young men, find someone like my wife.  If you do, you will be a blessing, and you will be blessed.

As I head to sleep, I’m reminded of Proverbs 31:

An excellent wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
And he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm,
All the days of her life (vv. 10-12).

She … works with willing hands (v. 13).

She looks well to the ways of her household
And does not eat the bread of idleness (v. 27).

Her children rise up and call her blessed;
Her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many women have done excellently,
But you surpass them all” (vv. 28-29).

Give her of the fruit of her hands,
And let her works praise her in the gates (v. 31).

The city of Newhall has no gates where Cindi’s works can praise her.  But I have seen the fruit of her hands tonight, and I will praise her to anyone who will listen.

Adoption Prayer

This is a very significant week for our adoption.  There’s a court date for a few other adopting families scheduled on Friday, September 15.  They’re in the same adoption process as we are, and the orphanage is predicting that the judge’s response to their case will probably be a fair indication of his future response to other families (like us) who are hoping to have court dates scheduled soon.  There are a lot more details than this, but this is the bottom line.  As always, we would appreciate your prayers.

The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD;
He turns it wherever He wishes.
- Proverbs 21:1

Cultural Righteousness

I flipped on the TV tonight and Remember the Titans was ending.  Although it has some definitely cheesy football footage, I’ve always appreciated the race-centered storyline.  Especially now that we’re adopting a baby boy from Africa.

During the scene where Sunshine, Petey, and Blue walk into a restaurant-bar in 1971 Virginia and are turned away by the discriminating owner, Cindi looked over at me from the computer and asked, “Do you ever wonder what you would’ve been like if you lived back then?”

That’s not a small question.

The easy answer is: I love diversity, I find great joy in other cultures and races, my mom’s side of the family is Japanese through and through (I’m half), I hope to be a missionary (i.e., cross a culture with the gospel), and I’m adopting an African son and am willing to put up with decades of strange looks and embarrassing questions and conversations about race both in and out of the home.  So, to answer the question, I would’ve been colorblind if I lived back in 1971.  That’s the non-thinking, superficial answer.

The hard answer is: I can’t say that there’s anything inherent in me that would’ve caused me to look at a black man any differently than the many people who were bigots and racists in 1971 Virginia.  The fact is, racism was a part of the culture.  I probably would’ve been raised like all the other white kids around town.  Racism would’ve been normal.  I would certainly hope that my Christian values and my biblical perspective as a new creature in Christ would’ve caused me to be discerning and different when it came to issues of diversity and segregation.  But I can’t guarantee that.  Instead of being colorblind, there’s a good chance I would’ve been cultureblind.  I wouldn’t have been able to see the blatant travesties of my own day and age.  I would have simply accepted them like everyone else.

This reminds me that there is such a thing as cultural righteousness.  And cultural righteousness isn’t necessarily the same as intentional godliness.  I would define cultural righteousness as a good ethic that is present at a particular time in a particular place among a particular people, but that isn’t necessarily gospel-driven or Christ-centered or Spirit-produced.  It’s just part of the culture.  For instance, many African cultures are very hospitable.  Latin culture is very passionate.  American culture strives for justice and fairness and equity.  These things can all be wonderful values and expressions.  And I think that some of them are blessings from the Lord and reflections of the tainted image of God within man.  But that doesn’t mean that I’m more holy or biblical just because I unthinkingly share those assumed values.  In fact, the American unbeliever down the street probably thinks the same way as me.

Just because I share the positive values of my culture doesn’t mean that I would’ve held to those positive values if I had been raised differently or that I will maintain those values when they’re challenged in times to come.  My culture tells me that racial discrimination is wrong.  The Virginia culture of 35 years ago would’ve told me that racial discrimination was right.  So the fact that I personally despise racial discrimation and ethnic hierarchies and social caste systems is not necessarily due to my own insight and convictions.  In another time and another place, I might have held to opposite views simply due to the invisible influence of the culture.

Now, I do believe that my God-given commitment to diversity and my love for other races are distinctively Christian perspectives that God creates and cultivates in His children.  And I would hope that the way I think about discrimination and diversity and racial issues is different than the world’s.

But my point is this: If the good that I do is simply a reflection of inborn cultural values and is not Spirit-led and Bible-soaked and self-denying, it is not ultimate righteousness.

Sometimes righteousness is not counter-cultural.  There are some elements of moral rightness and goodness that are emphasized and highlighted by particular cultures.  I thank God for when this is the case.  But I must never mistake that kind of localized and categorized righteousness for the widespread, pervasive godliness that God calls for.

Have you ever wondered what you would’ve been like if you were born into the home of an officer in Hitler’s army and were inundated with the Nazi worldview from the time you could crawl?

May we not be deceived into thinking that our effortless cultural righteousness is something more than us responding humanly to the blessing of being molded by a good element of a pagan culture.  May we be humbled by the thought of what we might be like if we had been born into cultures with atrocious and devastating worldviews.  May we fear the invisible effects that our own dangerous American culture is having on us, begging God daily to expose its sinful values to us and to help us overcome them.  And may we pursue radical holiness even when it is laborious and painful and counter-cultural.