Monday, October 09, 2006

Love is the Theme - Part II

Example Two: Love Grows A Family

I'm still new at the blog thing, and I am kidded a great deal about my pastoral "paranoia," so I am going to be very general with this story so as not to invade the privacy of someone else. My church family knows who I'm talking about, and I don't want everyone to think that anything that happens to them will end up on my blog. Also, I got the "go ahead," from the mom in this entry.

I know this wonderful couple who have adopted three boys, all of school age. They thought they were "through" adding to their family, but then the phone rang informing them that their boys' birth mother had given birth to another boy. The husband is between jobs (though his prospects are good!), and the mom doesn't make a huge amount of money in her job as secretary.

After a painful 24 hours of prayer and consideration, this couple decided that this baby was "one of their sons," and that the only option they had was to go and get him! They would figure out the nuts and bolts of paying for (adoption is still pretty expensive, as are feeding, clothing and educating kids!) their new son later.

They have to go through the typical paper work before they can bring their new son home, and in the mean time, the child is in foster care with a delightful family who have helped over fifty newborns over the past 10 years. Yes, a lot of people may think this couple is nuts to adopt another child considering finances, etc. I know this couple, however, and I know what is motivating their decision...love...acting in the best of interest of their new baby and of their three boys at home.

Their decision reminds me all over again that God's love for us is...well...unreasonable. It doesn't make a lot of sense does it? He knew from the beginning that we would be a lot of trouble. After all, how long do you really think if took Adam and Eve to do the ONE thing God told them not to do? And grandkids are supposed to be a specially blessing to grandparents, but God's two grandsons...well, one of them turned out to be the first murderer. Still God did not abandon his first family, and he hasn't abandoned us either.

It is "unreasonable" that God "demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8) As I told my Sunday School class yesterday, "God loves us because...God loves us!" It's not because we're good, or because we're better than someone else...but it's in God's nature to love us. And God wants us to learn to love others, even our enemies, with this kind of unreasonable love. Our world says is someone is evil to you, then you should be evil to them.

God's word has a better way. Romans 12:21 says, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Another way to put this is, "love wins!" Evil by its very nature is not the opposite of good, but the absence of it. Evil is a vacuum. We can get mad all we want at the evil in the world, but before we do, we need to ask ourselves if we are filling the world with more and more love? Are we acting in the best interests of others?

So this couple may not have made a logical decision, but they made a love decision, and how could that be wrong? May you find an opportunity this week to be unreasonable in your love toward another!

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