Adoption – The Lowedown

Ephesians 1

³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. ⁴For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ⁵he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— ⁶to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. (Ephesians 1:3-6, NIV)

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Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is chock full of important doctrinal truths that are foundational to the Christian faith.

In the opening verses of his letter, Paul outlines a number of spiritual blessings that are all true for believers the very moment they come to faith in Christ.

The first major blessing that Paul mentions is that we’ve been adopted into God’s family as his sons (and daughters). We experience this new relationship with God the moment we put our faith in Him.

Paul mentions two things about this adoption.

The first thing that Paul says is that we were chosen.

I know a little bit about what it means to be chosen.

When I was in grade school and it came time for teams to be picked at recess, I was usually one of the last ones chosen. I was extremely small for my age and I wasn’t particularly athletic. Because I didn’t stand out, I was usually the last person available when teams were formed, which means I often ended up on a team only by default.

My early childhood experience of not being chosen created negative feelings of self-worth as I was keenly aware that being chosen was often based on characteristics that I simply did not possess.

A few years after my wife and I got married, the opportunity to be “chosen” came about in a different context.

My wife and I struggled with infertility and so we decided that the best option to start a family was to pursue adoption. After some research, we decided to apply to become adoptive parents though an adoption agency known as Bethany Christian Services. They promote what is known as open adoption, which means that there is a negotiated relationship between the birth mom and the adoptive parents.

The way this agency works is that birth moms who come into Bethany Christian Services wanting to make an adoption plan for their child look through a binder of profiles that represent the many different couples who are seeking to adopt. When they find couples that interest them, a meeting is arranged to get to know one another. After the meeting, if both the birth mom and the adoptive couple like each other, then a match is made.

In short, the birth mothers “choose” the families they want to meet who will potentially become adoptive parents to their child.

When my wife and I were navigating the process of adoption, we eventually got to a point where we needed to create a profile of ourselves to place in this binder.

We had jumped through all of the hoops, including filling out our application, undergoing a vigorous background check, getting references and having an in-home inspection to ensure our apartment was baby-proofed.

Once we had passed all of these checkpoints, we then had to create a profile of ourselves so that when birth mothers looked through the binder of couples, they would see our profile and possibly “choose” us.

I remember our social worker giving us a binder to look at so we could see samples of how other couples had presented themselves. Our task was to create 4-6 pages to introduce ourselves and market ourselves to the birth moms. The hope was to stand out in such a way that at least one birth mom would notice us and seek a meeting.

Click here to see a A Comprehensive List of Blog Posts Based on Bible Passage Reference

As I looked through the many profiles, I couldn’t help but think to myself that “these other couples are my competition.” I also noticed that many of the couples had nice homes and seemed to be better off financially than we were. We were living in an apartment at the time and, as missionaries, we certainly did not have lucrative jobs financially.

The thought that crossed my mind was, “what birth mother is ever going to pick our profile out of this binder? We have nothing to offer from a worldly perspective.”

The thing is that this is NOT how God chooses. He didn’t choose you from a book of resumes or a binder of profiles. You weren’t chosen based on your stellar achievements or amazing accomplishments.

The text says that we were chosen “before the creation of the world”, which is the second truth about adoption in this passage.

This means that God chose before any of us were born. Therefore, His choice could not have been based on anything we did because we weren’t alive yet to do anything that might merit God choosing us.

If you’ve placed your faith in Jesus, Scripture says that you now have a new relationship with God. You’ve been adopted into God’s family by His choice. He didn’t choose you (or me) because we were the best athletes, the smartest students, the funniest people, the most well-adjusted or the best-dressed. His choice wasn’t based on our success, our belief in ourselves or our family name.

His choice wasn’t based on any of the things that we tend to think of when we think about qualities that are necessary to be chosen. God’s choice is based simply, and only on His love, which is unconditional.

This is a hard concept to imagine because for most of us, we operate in a world and a culture where merit is everything. Think about it. If you want a good job you have to stand out. You have to have a good pedigree. You need good grades and a degree from a good school. You need a proven track record and stellar references. The ultimate trump card is knowing someone who has an in – someone who can use their influence on your behalf.

That’s the worldly understanding of choice. Fortunately for us, that is NOT how God operates. If it was, I’m certain that I’d still be on the sidelines, having been excluded from the fun because I wasn’t good enough to get picked.

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Reflection

Growing up, were you the kind of kid who usually got selected or the kind of kid who didn’t get selected? How did that impact your view of yourself and others?

What are some common things we tend to get chosen for? What kinds of qualities or characteristics are generally necessary to be chosen for those things?

I often have asked people this question: How do you think God chooses who makes it into heaven and who doesn’t? What do you think is His criteria?

What do you think it means that God’s only choice for adopting you, choosing you, was love?

Image created by Grok

December marked the 16th anniversary of our adoption of Jacob and Joshua. I remember the Family court judge expressing her appreciation to be a part of a story that had a positive outcome, which I gathered was not the norm for her court.

Jacob (held by Jen) and Joshua (held by Dave) are officially adopted in December 2001.

From the very beginning, Jacob and Joshua have looked alike. In fact, when we were about to take them from the hospital home that they had experienced their first 3 weeks of life, the nurses were so concerned that we might not know who was whom that they tied a little tag on the toe of each one so we wouldn’t get them mixed up.

Despite the fact that they looked so similar at birth, we were informed that they were fraternal twins and not identical. Naturally, we assumed that over time, they would begin to look as different as any non-twin siblings might.

That has not been the case. Most of their sports coaches over the years have not been able to tell them apart, nor have many of their teachers. While some of their closer friends have learned to identify them, many of their Cross Country teammates refer to them simply as “LoweBros”. And as crazy as this sounds, Jacob and Joshua to this day will sometimes look at a recent photo of both of them (like their most recent Cross Country team photo for example) and mistake their twin for themselves!

The question that we often get is: are they identical? Our answer has always been an uncertain, “well, we were told they were fraternal but we think they might be identical but we can’t really know for sure unless we get a DNA test.”

Last Fall, Jen saw a Black Friday deal for a heritage test sponsored by 23andme.com, a company that specializes in creating ancestry profiles based on a person’s DNA sample. Jen purchased kits for our entire family and after sending in our samples, we waited to see what the reports might reveal.

After a couple of weeks, the reports came back, and our long-time suspicions have been confirmed…Jacob and Joshua share 100% of their DNA, which means that they are identical twins!

Even though they’re identical, they’re still unique, with their own personalities, interests, strengths and weaknesses. This is what amazes me about God. Literally, billions of people have walked this earth and no two of them have ever been exactly alike. Each person has their own story.

Jacob left and Joshua take a photo before getting their hair cut in preparation to attend Service Academy Night.

As I think about our job of reaching this Millennial generation and helping them to thrive spiritually and live missionally, the task can seem overwhelming. There is so much we’re trying to figure out and learn. There’s so much we don’t know.

I take comfort in the idea that we don’t have to know everything to move forward. We simply treat each person as the unique individual they are. We learn their stories and we walk along-side them and help them, as much as we can, to experience Jesus in their lives.

We are grateful for your role in our life journey. Thanks for walking alongside us through the ups and downs and uncertainties of life. We are grateful for your friendship and partnership!

Click the link to see: Twins Through the Years