Adopted

10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us
19We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:10, 19

I struggle to write what is on my heart for words fail to express the picture I wish to paint. However, I will write what I can and pray that God will take the words and speak to your heart that which He has been speaking to mine.

I want you for a moment to imagine that you have decided to adopt a child. You know something of this child’s experiences thus far in life; you know that the home you brought him out of was a place of turmoil. His father was an angry man; he was verbally and physically abusive. His mother was emotionally disconnected and unable to provide the love and care the child so deeply needed. The only constant in his life was pain and fear. He had never felt loved or protected.

As you bring this hurting child into your home are you going to expect him to love you? Will you demand that he respects you? Will you be angry when he struggles to trust you? Would you not rather understand that this little boy will need to experience your goodness before he is able to start to trust? Would you not understand that he needs to know your love before he is capable of giving you love in return? Before I move on to my point I want us to remember that our goodness is but a rain drop to the ocean in comparison to God’s goodness.

Whether or not your home was as extreme as the child’s home I described above, we have all been broken and are in need of healing. God has adopted us and brought us into his home, and we like the little boy do our best to try and fit in, to follow the rules and act as if we are part of the family. Yet, deep down we fear we will be discovered and forced to leave this new found place of peace. Others tell us that if we love this Father who has rescued us then we will obey him. Here starts our belief that we must perform to remain in His family. We have moments of tasting the goodness of this new home and we long to love the Father who brought us here, yet the fear that it will all end the moment our true self is discovered tempers our joy.

However, when I read the proclamation in scripture that says we love God because He first loved us, I am captivated by the picture of Father God taking us in just like the damaged little child. As we are being brought out of our brokenness and taken into His loving, healing home He knows we are not capable of love. Yet, the Father with a zealous love runs to us, fully aware that we cannot give love in return. He pleads with us to drop the charade and our efforts to prove that we belong in His family. He wants to show us that he loves us even where we feel most unlovable. He wants us to live in the freedom that comes from knowing we are not going to one day be found out. He wants us to hear the good news that we have already been found out! Our secrets are revealed, our brokenness is exposed and we are still LOVED, cherished, and adored. We have been welcomed home! We have been invited to dine with the King and there is nothing we can say or do to be cast away from His presence!

What a powerful truth! God himself is willing to bend low and teach me how to love, to help me learn to trust. He is not demanding my affection or obedience, nor is He concerned about my performance, He just wants me! He is asking to walk with me through my darkness so I don’t have to face my pain alone. He is offering us the healing that comes when we cease pretending that we love God and honestly admit to Him that we feel unlovable and we do not know how to love. From this place of vulnerability we can allow an infinitely loving God to touch us at our deepest core. As His love begins to show us that we are safe in His presence and that we belong in His family, we can stand and take our seat at the King’s table in the unshakable assurance that we are passionately loved, completely safe and eternally secure. We have been loved and we will find that an authentic love for the One who loved us has been born.