Our Second Adoption

Our family recently started our second adoption.  We have told many of our close friends and family, and wanted to publicize it here so that you can know and pray.  We are attempting to adopt at least two children from Rwanda, which sits on the southwest border of Uganda.  So far we have completed some initial paperwork and finished our home study.  We don’t have a prediction for how long the process will take, and even if we did, we would hesitate from putting too much stock into it after our last experience.  God has promised us bigger things than a timeline, and we desire to look to those bigger things mainly and most often.

We would deeply appreciate your prayers.  So many prayed during our last adoption, and increasingly so as things got hairy.  Eternity may reveal that this was the reason why God chose to bring it to completion — His people asked.  You can pray for the following:

1. That we might lean on God and not on our previous adoption experience.
2. That God would protect us from presumption and would keep our hands open even while parental love begins to knit our hearts to the children we meet.  That we would be wise with our hearts between the time of introduction and finalization, but that our love and affection would not be bridled.  That we might care for them as His children even before they become (or even if they never become) ours.
3. That God would continue to provide financially and that our faith would grow and blossom.  That God would grant us self-discipline and foresight in stewardship.
4. That our Father would providentially give us to the children that He has for us, and that He would prepare our hearts to respond with joy to the children He places in our family.  Ask that He would wisely oversee their number, ages, genders, health, experiences, and needs.
5. That God would fill us with clear biblical wisdom to teach our young son about the grace of adoption and the mercy of the gospel.
6. That God would help us and others not to identify ourselves as an adopting family but a Christian family, and that our relationships would be flavored with the adoption but not overwhelmed with it.
7. That God would stir others to adopt through watching us walk through the process again, and that those who are standing at the edge would jump.
8. That God would give my wife special diligence, attention to detail, perseverance, and patience as she completes the mounds of paperwork and navigates the procedural, governmental, and international issues.
9. That we would be a testimony for Christ and not for ourselves among the many government officials, orphanage workers, and inquiring strangers whose paths we will cross.
10. That God would give us the desire of our hearts by bringing two or more Rwandan orphans into our home for life.
11. That God would glorify, honor, and publicize Himself and His love for His children (including us and orphans) through this adoption.

I want to give a special, public note of thanks to the dozens of people who kicked off this adoption financially last year with a significant monetary gift that was collected to help us.  There may only be several who visit this blog – God knows who you are – but I want you to know that we are more grateful than we can say.  I can picture like yesterday the moment the gift was presented.  If the Lord wills, someday we will tell your story to some grown Rwandan children who will then realize that their family was much larger than they thought.  You have seen and have believed that God is a father to the fatherless, and you have joined Him in this.  We thank you.  May your reward in heaven be great.

The Tears of the Godly

Puritan Thomas Watson said that gospel tears are one mark of a godly man.  Here are his reasons why a godly man weeps.

1. A godly man weeps because of his indwelling sin, his sinful nature which he knows is at enmity with God.
2. A godly man weeps because his corruption clings to him, and he cannot fully escape it in this life.
3. A godly man weeps because he is sometimes overcome by his sin, even though he has felt the deep conviction of it before.
4. A godly man weeps because is not more holy than he is, even though he is well aware that God desires righteousness from him.
5. A godly man weeps because he senses God’s love; his heart is like gold that is easily melted by fire.
6. A godly man weeps because his sins are in some ways worse than the sins of others.

In what sense are the sins of the justified, forgiven, godly man worse than the sins of others?

1. Because he acts against his own principles, sinning not only against God’s righteous law but against his own principles, knowledge, vows, prayers, hopes, and experiences.
2. Because he sins unkindly against the kindness of God, in the same way that Peter’s denial of Christ was a sin against love.  “The sins of the godly go nearest to God’s heart.  Others’ sins anger God; these grieve him… The unkindness of a spouse goes nearest to the heart of her husband.”
3. Because he brings more shame to God when he sins, tarnishing the church of Christ and the Christian religion.

This should make the godly man mourn even more for his own sins.  Yet his is not a despairing sorrow but a good and right and profitable sorrow.  There is a great difference between the sorrow of a godly man and the sorrow of the wicked.  A godly man’s sorrow has three significant characteristics:

1. The sorrow of the godly man is inward.  It is an affliction of the soul which runs deep as opposed to the hypocrites whose sorrow is merely external, physical, facial.
2. The sorrow of the godly man is ingenuous (without reservation, candid, sincere, guileless).  The godly man weeps over his sin, not the consequences that follow.  “It is more for the spot than the sting.  Hypocrites weep for sin only as it brings affliction.”
3. The sorrow of the godly man is influential.  It effects true, lasting change.  “Divine tears not only wet but wash; they purge out the love of sin.”

Watson concludes with two implications:

1. “How far from being godly are those who scarcely ever shed a tear for sin!  If they lose a near relation, they weep; but though they are in danger of losing God and their souls, they do not weep.  How few know what it is to be in an agony for sin or what a broken heart means!”  “It was a greater plague for Pharaoh to have his heart turned into stone than to have his rivers turned into blood.”
2. “Let us strive for this divine characteristic: be weepers.”  “Repenting tears are precious… They are beautifying.  A tear in the eye adorns more than a ring on the finger.”  “A sinner’s mirth turns to melancholy.  A saint’s mourning turns to music.”

David taught us three powerful truths: godly men sin, godly men weep when they sin, and God desires godly sorrow more than religious exercises.  “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:16-17).

Thomas Watson, The Godly Man’s Picture, Puritan Paperbacks (Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth Trust, 1999 [original 1666]), 55-60.

Imaginary Conversations

I’ve had several remarkable conversations recently.  I made incredible points with decleating rhetoric complete with magnetic emotion.  In each case my conversation partner was slow-witted and unimpressive, and more or less faded into the background.  I was oratorically indestructible, surprising even myself with my penetrating words and impeccable argumentation.  Propositions were concrete and immovable.  Illustrations danced and sang.  Trust me — you would not have walked away unmoved.  I was amazing.

I had these conversations in my head.

I couldn’t tell you that this is an everyday occurrence (I’d have to actively monitor myself to know), but it’s not unusual.  Imaginary conversations are surprisingly commonplace.  Over the years, I’ve noticed some not-so-subtle things about these conversations.

1.  I’m always right.  I can’t recall a clear example in which I represented the wrong side (and recognized it).  I’m sure it’s happened, but it’s nothing close to the norm.  I’m always right.  I always side with justice, with righteous revenge often completing the threesome.  Like the fresh-faced big-screen lawyer waxing eloquent in his closing argument, I’m standing nobly for righteousness.  How could it be otherwise?

2.  I always win.  This is what makes these conversations so fun.  Most of them are competitive.  Something is at stake, usually something personal.  I have a point to make, an argument to present, a wrong to be righted.  And I always succeed.  I always win.  The dialogue never ends with me acknowledging defeat or correction.  You’d think that the lack of suspense would eventually dilute the enjoyment.  But it never has.  This kind of victory is intoxicating.  So I keep drinking.

3.  I’m very clever.  Like that blog commenter or Facebook status-updater who takes ten minutes to craft a single witty sentence, my cleverness is off the charts in these imaginary conversations.  My declarations and comebacks may be as contrived as a bad action movie, but they sound absolutely Spielberg in the moment.  Interestingly, it’s also an instant cleverness.  All those jabbing comments you usually come up with two hours after the conversation’s over?  I think of those on the fly.  In these mental dialogues, I have much quicker wit than I actually do in real life.  This only adds to the enjoyment.  It doesn’t matter that my imagination has created an opponent who is severely outmatched.  I don’t mind an underdog.  The point is winning, not a fair fight.

4.  I’m sarcastic, satirical, and biting.  I know the manipulation playbook, and I run every play to perfection.  I dodge and weave, use misdirection, create decoys, keep the opponent on his heels, and play smashmouth when necessary (and sometimes even when completely unneeded).  Sharp tones and cutting words aren’t just whipped out for an appropriate moment here and there.  They’re the name of the game.  And I don’t just want to win.  I want to silence.  I want to humiliate.

5.  I use the other person.  Whoever I’m talking to basically functions as so many steps on the ladder of my pride.  Every word he offers is simply a rung for me to step on as I ascend to take my rightful place on my well-earned pedestal.  I create a dialogue that perpetually benefits me, putting words in my opponent’s mouth that merely serve as softballs for me to crush.  I don’t allow him to use his best arguments, and I don’t offer a welcoming, diplomatic ear.  No, I’m hand-crafting every opportunity to deliver the zinger.

6.  I am often selfish, jealous, and bitter.  This is what disturbs me most about many of these imaginary conversations.  Often I have them with people who I feel have wronged me, or those who I believe have misunderstood or misrepresented me.  Sometimes they’re with people I just don’t like for one reason or another (though I usually haven’t identified this, faced the fact, and confessed it to the Lord for what it is).  But regardless of the specific scenario, I find that I am often selfish, jealous, and bitter before, during, and after these conversational fantasies.  I want to speak the hard words that justice demands; I want to make up for a missed opportunity to tell them what I really think; I want to put them in their place; I want to get something off my chest.

This whole imaginary conversation thing might be funny if it weren’t so heinously twisted.  Certainly there are times when I have imaginary conversations because I’m rightfully nervous about a potentially awkward or volatile situation.  There are also times when I’m sincerely trying to prepare for an announcement or a presentation or a sermon and I want to hear how different statements sound in my head or out loud.  So yes, sometimes I’m engaging in the natural mental exercise of rehearsing.  Every guy who’s ever gotten engaged understands that a mental rehearsal can be a healthy, righteous, and loving thing.

Yet it would be a lie to say that these are the majority of my customized mental dialogues (and even these good imaginary conversations are often tainted with selfishness and a desire to impress).  Maybe this is just me, or just people who have minds that work like mine.  But I would register a guess that there may be more than a few out there who have imaginary conversations on a semi-regular basis.

You may have them in the shower, or in the car during either direction of your commute.  They may be with a spouse, a parent, a boss, or a co-worker.  They may be conversations you’re planning to have, conversations you’re dreading having, or conversations you wish had gone differently.  Often they’ll be conversations that you’ll never have (and shouldn’t have), but you still want the private, selfish, finger-licking delight of giving someone the piece of your mind that you could never (and should never) give them in real life.  The variations are frightening.

Jesus told the Pharisees that it wasn’t the food they ate that defiled them, but what came out of their hearts: “evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matthew 15:18-19).  I wince when I think about what my imaginary conversations reveal about my heart.  You can guess which side of the proverb I see reflected in these conversational fantasies:  “The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things” (Proverbs 15:28).

I would invite you to consider the bitterness, the envy, the scheming, and the unchecked pride that motivates and characterizes so many of my imaginary conversations.  And perhaps some of you who stand with me in the ranks of the less sanctified will join in excavating your own hearts.  I mourn to think of how much acreage in our hearts must be overgrown with the invisible thorns and thistles of bitterness and wicked scheming, and how much these thorns and thistles must choke out what is good, holy, and loving.  This is yet another reason for gratitude to the merciful God who wove these bitter thoughts into a crown of thorns and placed it onto the head of His precious Son so that I might be forgiven and made pure.  What better motivation to now live in a loving and kind celebration of that costly purity, even in my imaginations.

I Am a Father

I suppose Father’s Day, like Mother’s Day, is meant to be a unilateral holiday.  It’s typically a one-way expression of appreciation from children to their fathers.  Yet on my second Father’s Day, I find that it’s also a personal celebration of the high privilege and unique joy of fatherhood.  It’s a day to reflect on the overwhelming happiness of being a father.

I am a father.  This means many things.

The love that I have for my son is literally inexpressible.  I don’t know of any way to fully communicate the depth of love that I have for him.  Were my life to depend on it, I could not entirely express the way I feel about my son.  It runs too deep.  This is natural, and it is supernatural.  I am a father.

One of the most gut-wrenching thoughts I have is the thought of dying before my son has grown up.  I know that God is his ultimate Father and I know that his mother is wonderfully capable.  But this does not make me satisfied with the notion of leaving him before he reaches maturity.  I do not believe that God has intended us to be happy with the idea of our children burying us.  Yes, He is good, and He works all things according to the counsel of His perfect will.  But His perfect design, which drove the creation of the original world that He called “good,” says that fathers are to raise their sons.  I want to raise my son, if God would be so gracious.  I am a father.

Watching my son grow is a distressing and joyful experience.  Distressing because I love him so much exactly how he is and I don’t want him to grow up, and joyful because as my wife faithfully reminds me, every stage has the seeds of joy in it.  This is simply the nature of the relationship.  I don’t want him to grow up because I am a father, and I rejoice to see him grow because I am a father.

I have never been imitated so much in my entire life.  He wants to do everything just like me.  When I wear shorts, he wants to wear shorts.  When I eat quickly, he competes with me.  He says he will work where I work, and he carries a wallet because I do.  When I give thanks for dinner, he watches me.  When I start a project, he helps me.  When I play sports, he runs along the sideline.  I have not yet presented him with a reasoned argument to imitate me.  He just does.  I am a father.

In so many ways I do not want him to be like me, but in a very deep and fundamental sense, I do.  I want him to love the God that I love.  I want him to care about what I care about.  I want him to live and die for the things I want to live and die for.  I want him to follow in my footsteps.  What father doesn’t?  Sons are meant to bear the image of their fathers, in so many ways.  I want my son to bear mine, as far as it is the Lord’s.  I am a father.

I love children, and I want to help them, especially those who are fatherless, broken, and oppressed.  I am moved by Jesus’ heart for children.  But I do not love other children like I love my son.  Some may see this as a deficiency.  I see it as design.  The love of a father for his child, like the love of a husband for his wife, simply cannot be mass-produced.  My love for my son is unique.  I am a father.

I care about the church and the world and the heritage that I leave behind.  Some talk, presumably with wisdom, about not caring about the condition of the planet or the state of the society or the quality of the community.  For these it is a badge of honor — the pilgrim mindset misapplied — to disregard the world’s trajectories.  But not fathers.  Fathers do not say, “I’ll be gone by then, so it doesn’t matter.”  I care about the world in which my son will live, the church to which he will belong, and the community in which he will participate.  I care deeply.  I am a father.

There is an inborn, protective intensity to a father’s love that is no less beautiful for its ferocity.  Any father whose heart is not backwards and twisted would offer his life as a shield for his child.  This is why David the son of Jesse sings, “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation” (Psalm 68:5).  In the divine character that we are to image there is an indivisible union of fatherhood and protection.  To be a father is to be a fortress.  I am a protector.  I am a father.

This is why seeing Calvary through the lens of fatherhood is astonishing.  I see the gospel now with a clarity that was not there before.  And it is a clarity that cannot really be seen; only felt.  This is why I chose to preach on Romans 8:32 last year.  It makes so much more sense now.  I am a father.

Yet these precious riches of my fatherly blessings pale in comparison to what I have been given as a son, on earth and in heaven.  My fatherhood is a temporary shadow of the eternal reality, a faint echo of the divine proclamation, a blurred copy of the heavenly original.  The inheritance I will leave is laughable compared to the heavenly riches I have been promised in Christ.  The love, care, and protection I offer my son is simply a small silhouette created by the brilliant light of the Father’s faultless care.  Like every father before me, with the exception of one, I am a son before I am a father.  I am loved, welcomed, named, nurtured, taught, protected, enjoyed, forgiven, corrected, trained, fed, clothed, and secure.  I have a Father.