5 Reasons to Adopt
The Call is Clear
Throughout the bible, God reveals his heart for the fatherless and the orphan, and he calls his people to care for them1. There are many ways to answer this call – from prayer, to sponsoring a child through organizations like Compassion International2, to partnering with orphanages locally and around the world. We can encourage and meet the needs of single mothers and their children in our churches and communities. But surely the most direct form of obedience is to bring a child into your home and to make them your own.
The Need is Enormous
A friend of mine was asked why he was adopting a child when he already had four of his own; his response was that the child he planned to adopt had zero parents. There are an estimated 18 million children around the world that have lost both parents. If we limit our focus to the US, there are roughly 400,000 children without permanent homes, with a quarter of those eligible for adoption3. That means there are likely thousands of children waiting to be adopted within a few hundred miles of where you live right now. God is not unaware of these statistics. Coupled with his clear and consistent call throughout scripture to care for orphans, it seems likely that there are many Christians that have not yet responded in obedience to the call to adopt that God has already placed on their lives.
The Impact is Incredible
As with biological children, adopted children are a mission field. Taking a child into your home gives you the opportunity to show them the love of Christ, to share the gospel with them, and to disciple them throughout their lives, impacting not only the rest of their life on earth but their eternity beyond. That impact is echoed and magnified down through the generations grafted into your family tree through adoption. We have an opportunity as individuals to change the world for a child through adoption, and we have the opportunity as the Church to change the world altogether, if we will be compassionate and obedient.
The Reward is Real
Many people responded to the news of our daughter’s adoption by saying how blessed she was to be entering a loving home and family. I think that is true, but it is only one half of the truth, for we too have been richly blessed as her mother and father and brother and sister. My family was not quite complete until she joined us, and it is clear that God rescued her out of danger and gave her to us for a special purpose (maybe just to make her mommy and daddy really really happy, but probably something else as well).
The World is Watching
Adoption paints a beautiful picture of the gospel for the world around us, because believers are adopted as children of God through the grace we find in the cross of Christ4. It puts flesh on the idea that when we put our faith in Christ, we are given full access to the Father, with all the intimacy and inheritance belonging to a child of the King. I guarantee that if you adopt, there will be many people that ask you why you chose to do so or just want to hear your story. Every one of those conversations is an opportunity to testify to the word of God, to your response in faith, and make the link to the gospel of adoption as children of God. So many adoptions are international and/or interracial, which gives further opportunity to demonstrate the heart of God for the nations in your own family and further the work of reconciliation initiated at the cross.
References:
Ex. 22:22, Deut. 10:18, Deut. 24:19, Ps. 68:5, Ps. 82:3, James 1:27 and many more
http://www.compassion.com/
http://ccainstitute.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=25&layout=blog&Itemid=43
John 1:12, Rom. 8:15, Gal. 4:5-7, Eph. 1:5, 1 John 3:1 among others
