WHY I DECIDED TO ADOPT | BRAD'S STORY

Brad here this time.  Like Brooke, my journey to adoption didn't come from a dream or a conference or a crazy set of circumstances (not that any of those are bad!).  My story comes from contemplation, consideration, and confidence in who God is and what He calls us to.

And below is my half of getting to the point of saying, “yes” to adoption:

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About five years ago, Brooke and I decided that we were finished having our own biological children.  We decided that if the Lord wanted to expand our family, He would do it either through His divine methods or through adoption.  And for me – if I’m honest - I didn’t necessarily think that either would happen…or not happen.  I was pretty neutral.

Over the last five years, I have maintained my neutrality in this discussion.  I have been pretty content with having only two children.  Abi and Andrew are 15 months apart so the first few years of having two kids that young and that close together were challenging, but over the last couple years, I have fully enjoyed having just Abi and Andrew.

At elementary school age, we are finally turning the corner in a lot of ways.  For example, we flew to Georgia to see Brooke’s family this year as opposed to spending 40 hours in the car over the span of 8 days.  Abi and Andrew are also close enough in age to play on the same hockey team.  At practice, Brooke and I can sit and talk together, alone… in peace.  Abi and Andrew can get themselves dressed in the morning, get in the car by themselves and get ready for bed by themselves.  Life is finally getting to the point where there is some breathing room… and I like it!

So why is it that we’ve decided to move forward in this process?  For me, there are two main reasons.

First, I trust my wife.

The Lord has very clearly put something on her heart that I cannot argue with.  Brooke has a deep and intimate walk with Jesus that I look at and only wish that I could come close to.  Jesus told her that He has something for us in adoption and I believe her.

Second, I can’t think of a good reason not to.

Now I do admit that might sound trivial but hopefully, I can share a piece of scripture that popped into my head while considering adoption, and that I believe gives this some context.

This scripture doesn’t really have anything to do with adoption, per se.  I could try to make it seem like I studied the Bible and the Lord spoke to my heart and gave me a scripture that talked about taking care of orphans and widows (like James 1:27), or even about how we have been adopted into God’s kingdom ourselves (as in Ephesians 1:5) but this is not one of those scriptures – it’s broader than that.  It is a verse that talks about being in relationship with God and what it means to flesh that out in our day-to-day lives.

The scripture is Micah 6:6-8, specifically verse 8.  And it says this:

6. With what shall I come before the Lord
     and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
     with calves a year old?
7. Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
     with ten thousand rivers of olive oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgressions,
     the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8. He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. 
     And what does the Lord require of you?  
To act justly and to love mercy 
     and to walk humbly with your God.

As with any crossroads in life regarding a challenging decision, as believers in Jesus, we go to the Lord and say, “God, what do I do?”.  And what I'm learning is that isn’t the right question to ask, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

The writer in Micah 6:6 essentially asks that question – “With what shall I come before the Lord with?”  He’s asking the question, “What do I bring to God?” or rather “God…what do you want?"  Thus asking, “What do I do?”

Here’s the deal… if we know what someone (God in this case) wants…then that helps us to know what to do.

When the consideration of adoption came to me – I asked a very similar question – “God, what do I do?  What do you want in this?”  In hindsight, I don't think that was the right question to ask.  This scripture I believe shows us what the right question is and it’s this:

“God, will you show me more of who you are as we figure this out?”

Now in this scripture, the author throws out some possibilities of what God might want in verses 6 and 7… burnt offerings, calves a year old, thousands of rams, ten thousands rivers of olive oil, my FIRST BORN!!

There’s a sense here, maybe even a hint of sarcasm, that the writer's understanding of the Lord’s expectation is that there is no way he could actually give what God requires.  A thousand rams, ten thousand rivers??  It’s impossible.

Well…he’s right.  He knows that he can’t live up to God’s expectations – he’s a sinner.  The writer talks about the sin of his soul and his transgressions.  He understands that he is separated from God and that there’s no way back to God in and of his own workings.

But then, in verse 8, we learn that God himself has shown us what He requires of us:

“To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

I took the time to look up the original Hebrew language that this verse was first written in and found that ‘act justly’, ‘love mercy’, and ‘walk humbly’ seem to stack like bricks, one upon the other, rather than stand equally side by side.

Stay with me.  Here’s what I found about what these words meant to the original Hebrew writer:

“Act justly” : means to accomplish justice, or said differently – to do what is right.

Well, that’s great – we know that we’re supposed to do what is right… BUT HOW is the question.  Read on… the next piece helps us.

“Love mercy” : means to love ‘love’, literally.  'Mercy' in the Hebrew language can be translated 'steadfast love'.

So if we want to do what is right, we must learn to cultivate a heart that loves.

Awesome, that’s a great next step…but how do we cultivate a loving heart within ourselves?

That leads us to the final statement:

“Walk humbly with your God” : means to GO with God… allowing Him to take the lead.

These statements all build upon each other.  In order to do what is right (act justly), we must learn to love (love mercy), and in order to learn to love we must follow God (walk humbly with Him).

Now, for us today, we have the benefit of being able to live after Jesus came to earth.  We understand that He died for our sin to take it away so that we can now live in relationship with God through Jesus’ work on the cross.  We can walk in relationship with God because of what Jesus did.

For the writer here, however, it is before Jesus walked on earth; but yet at the heart of it – the way to do right things is through a relationship with God.  God answers the question the writer should be asking – if we want to do what is right in God’s eyes – God says, "Be in relationship with Me so that you can find out who I am, and I will show you love, and through that, you will do right things."

The right question to ask is “God, will you show me more of who you are?”

So, what does this have to do with my personal decision regarding adoption?

Well – I will say that I very much connect with the sarcasm of the writer when he talks about giving a thousand rams or ten thousand rivers of olive oil.  There is no way I can give what the Lord requires in and of myself because I am sinful – I can’t live up to God’s standards.

I really like what I see coming up in life if we continue on with two kids.  When the idea of adoption came up I knew there was no way that in and of myself, I would ever come to the conclusion that this was a logical thing to do.  I didn’t start the process of thinking about adopting with a conviction that adoption is what the Lord has for our family.  But I did start with wanting to do the right thing: I want to act justly, to do what God wants.

After having been following Jesus for 20 years, I wish this realization would have come faster: the realization that I was not asking God the right question.  I was asking “What do You want?”, but rather I needed to ask – “God, will You show me more of who You are in this?”

When I finally asked that question His answer was, “Yes, walk with Me, and let Me lead you.”

It was the verses in Micah 6, that brought to light my second reason to move forward, and what I mean by “there’s not a GOOD reason not to”.  Please, don’t mishear my reason - I can think of plenty of REASONS not to adopt – but not one of them is GOOD; or rather, none of them involve me walking humbly with my God and trusting where He is leading our family.  And so in a roundabout way – the Lord affirmed that this is the road we are walking if, in fact, I want to know God in a deeper way.

And so I…we… have said “yes” to bringing another wonderful child into this family; walking humbly with our God the entire way.

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Read Brooke's side of the story here.