Adopted & Extended Family ...

My kingdom for a sense of belonging: how often we would trade our success as the world measures it for a place and a people we could truly call home. The embrace of evil has left many scars upon our world and our relationships. Death, disease, accidents have claimed lives of family members, left spouses alone to raise who remains, or parted siblings from each other. The loss of love and refusal to submit to Christ has torn marriages apart and left wounded souls moving from pain to pain. But in the chaos there is still hope. In the darkness there is still light. Our condition is not our destiny, we are called to something more and something deeper.

Family is often defined through accident of birth. Since my mother and father conceived me, I am their child, and so on with my children. But family of blood bonds is not the only measure, and sometimes not even the strongest. We are all descendants, and we are all adopted. We descend from Adam and Eve and are all part of the human family by blood. But greater than this we are ALL adopted by Christ into His family unit with God through His grace and love and ransom paid for our redemption. Christ called us more than servants He called us friends. He was not ashamed to call those who believe in Him, “His brothers”. We are family with Christ by His gift enabling it, and our choice confirming it. The bonds of family by choice then are sometimes greater than those of blood.

Our Christianity is not the only example of families forged by choice. Marriage itself is a union of diverse blood lines and genealogies. The Bible speaks of a man leaving his mother and a woman leaving her home to become “one flesh”. It is the formation or extension of a new family through the choice made to bond with God in love forever. And over a lifetime, not even a parent can claim to love their own child greater than the love one devoted spouse reliant upon God can do. The love inside a union made perfect by God is the strongest love known to us. Only a spouse can know someone to this level of intimacy. And this love was one of choice, just as the one to be saved by Christ is.

So how do we honor our adoption into the family of Christ? Do we guard the gates, close and bar the doors, and see to it no one else like us is ever permitted to enter again into our new family unit? It sometimes looks this way to the world. It is what happens when we internalize the love we have been shown rather than manifest it outwards, back to the world where it is needed. Sometimes it is our inclination to take our forgiveness, and our love from God, and go isolate ourselves away from the world. We mistakenly think this will protect us from evil influences. But it does not. Rather it teaches us a lesson of selfishness even with what is freely given of God to us. We become standard-bearers rather than lovers of lost souls. It is backwards, and it is mistaken. We should reflect the love God has shown us. We should embrace our forgiveness, let go our shame, and face the world renewed to make it better not worse.

It is possible to love someone like a brother without ever being related by birth or by marriage. It is possible to love a mother who does not come from a bloodline you are connected to. It is possible to honor them, to cherish them, to forgive them as they have need, and to call them to remembrance of where all love can be found. It is possible to extend our ideas of adoption well past the concept of only taking in a child without parents into our lives. While the formal adoption process for taking in children may be the highest calling of Christians demonstrating love for the world, the second highest calling may be in the taking in of others through a less formal process. When we adopt a grandmother for instance who has little family, or is shown little attention, we do no less an honorable thing.

When eyes have been opened by the liberating power of Christ removing evil from our character and our behavior, we see need more acutely than we did before. Hearts are touched by infirmity that were once willfully ignorant of suffering all around us. Christians have a unique ability to see through the eyes of Christ and meet needs of those He leads us to encounter. We need not constrain our ideas of relationships to merely friends, but as Christ did, we can elevate people to the status of immediate family by simply willing to do so. We can “adopt” siblings, parents, and children into our core family units making room in our hearts for even more love to reign. Our cup will surely run over in so doing. You will discover what it means to love on a level you can only dream about today, when you are willing to share more of yourself with more people who have need of you.

This is not intended to dilute a marital relationship. We do not seek to add more spouses to our mix. For there can be only one of these if we are to honor our union with man and God. But we do not often confuse parental love with romantic, nor do we often crave the romantic embrace of a sister. Keeping away the impurities Satan would introduce and focusing only on the Love God would have us embrace, allows us to expand our concept of family to a much broader picture, and more accurate one. For in heaven, we will all call each other by our familial names. If you and I have never met, through Christ we are made brothers. When I encounter you in heaven, you will already be my brother. I will already feel for you, what I feel for my brothers by blood, and my brothers by choice. We will together have found a place of belonging.

One fear a parent may have in adopting another child into an existing family unit, is how the other siblings will react. When our attention seems diverted to the hurting who have great needs, sometimes others who still need us as well can feel abandoned or neglected. To avoid this, we must involve them in the sharing of love. We must make them part of the solution of meeting the needs of others themselves and not try to take the entire burden upon our own shoulders. As we share the work of love, we lighten our own loads, and create a vested interest in success across an entire family, rather than resting in the hands of only one person.

While it may be difficult to think about, the same process of sharing burdens needs to be applied when a family member becomes seriously ill, or is lost to death. These occurrences were not supposed to be something we must contend with, but with evil comes the pain of evil, and the loss it can inevitable cause even through no fault of your own. When confronting tragedy, it is not time to cover up, it is time to open up. Feelings should be shared, emotions let out, and responses respected. We should not try to force someone to react the same way we do. But we should try to employ them in the work of showing love and support to others who remain with needs. This work of reaching out, even when suffering inside continues can act as healing to all. Both the hurting one who shares can be healed, as well as the target of their efforts.

Who can know your pain, or your joy more than your family? Who accepts you for who you are more than your family? Our families know us, and love us in spite of our shortcomings. We need wear no mask when facing our families, as they would only see it anyway. There is no need to cover who we are when dealing with family, as they have shown us love in spite of that already. This is the advantage of family over friendships and acquaintances. There can be deeper love in a family. There can be more intimate love in a family.

Before a Christian casually calls a stranger a “brother”, they should consider the ramifications of what they are saying. Are you ready to loan your newly met “brother” $5,000 on nothing but a handshake? Are they free to come stay in your home, eat from your table, and have you look out for them until they die of old age? Some say they would not do this for their blood relatives, why would they consider doing this for merely a “Christian Brother?” I submit there is no difference between the two, and what Christ has already done for us is greater than anything I just listed. The early Christian church did exactly what I described above. They took it a step further and sold everything they owned of value and donated every cent to the church for distribution across the family, as the family had need. This church was symbolized with white for its purity. Seems our symbolic coloring has dimmed a few shades since then. I fear we look more like death, or perhaps worse, like mediocrity.

It takes trust to open oneself up to the world. Not trust in the world, but trust in Christ that our lives will go according to His plan. We may lose our wealth in expanding our ideas of family. The needs may simply overtake our ability to provide for them. If this is our lot, count yourself blessed. For it is Christ that holds ALL of our needs. We may lose our ideas of privacy by expanding our ideas of family. But if this is so, count yourself blessed. For what we lose in privacy we gain back many times in love shared with those in need. We were not put here on earth to be wealthy and alone. We were put here to love and to be known for how much we love. When we submit our wills to Christ, the great adventure of loving begins. I pray it takes hold of our hearts, and allows us to finally truly become one family.