The Spirit of Adoption

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." John 14:18

Have you ever struggled with rejection? Have you found yourself assessing the lives of others and, in a black hole of comparison, decided you must be one of the less favored children of God due to the circumstances you see in your own life? Have you ever felt the need to earn the love of God by somehow proving you are worthy of it? My friend, if you see yourself in any of the above statements you are not alone. I have thought each of these thoughts and followed them all down bunny trails that eventually led to deep feelings of abandonment, rejection, and loneliness. As I have shared in previous blogs, I have often struggled with the mindset that I must earn God's affection by my own merit. In full transparency, I have been caught in deep cycles of depression that were driven by my desire to prove to God that I loved Him and feeling as though He grew increasingly more distant the more I worked to prove my affection and earn His attention.

This is not the way of the cross. Just as Jesus tells his disciples in the gospel of John, we as believers in Him have not been left as orphans. We are beloved children of the Father of all and we have been His prized possession and an object of His dearest affection since before the foundation of the world. Pause here a moment. I invite you to read that last sentence with your name inserted... "I, ____, am a beloved child of the Father of all and I have been His prized possession and an object of His dearest affection since before the foundation of the world."

This concept of orphanhood and adoption is something the Lord has been stirring in my heart and working out in my own life for many years now. For me, it is one of those lessons that I seem to need to learn over and over and over again. Thank you Jesus for your patience with us. Our Savior is one who will invite us back to concepts like these time and time again until our true identity and His eternal perspective become sealed in the depths of our hearts. He desires more for us then head knowledge of these truths. He wants these things to imprint themselves on our hearts and shift the very way we live our lives. If you find yourself coming back to the same concept over and over again don't slip into condemnation - rather I would encourage you to see this as an invitation to deep heart transformation and freedom. He has already promised He would give us a new heart, He is simply showing us the corners of it we haven't fully explored yet. What a beautiful adventure we are invited into in the process of salvation!

About a year or so back I was in a season of wrestling with this concept of adoption. One day during my prayer time I couldn't get a particular image out of my head. This picture was one of a young girl, outside, alone on a dark road, peering into the window of a warmly lit home. Inside the window was a table. It was lit by warm candlelight, filled with food and buzzing with children at every chair. At the head of the table was who I knew to be the Father, smiling and laughing with all of His children. Seeing this picture made my heart sink. It poked at something deep inside me. I knew in that moment the father in the image was God the Father and all the children were brothers and sisters in Christ, and the little girl outside... that was me. Why wasn't I inside? If I knew the Father at the table was my Father why did it feel so unnatural to see myself at the table? This image during my prayer time pulled at a string in my heart which began the process of unraveling an entire twisted ball of yarn in the depths of my being built upon past rejection, a lifetime of performance, and a whole host of other wounds that needed addressing. I began to ask the Lord why the little girl (me) in the image couldn't get to her seat at the table. My heart was grieved. I felt cast out, abandoned, unwanted, and deeply unseen. Where was all of this coming from??

"For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!' The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God." Romans 8:14-16

Shortly after I began asking the Lord why He was showing me this image He revealed to me a larger view of the same picture. As I zoomed out from my vantage point at the window, there was a door. It was open, warmly lit and an outstretched arms length away from my place outside the window. As soon as I saw this door, I noticed the Father inside leave His place at the table. As my eyes followed His path I soon found him in the doorway, hand extended in my direction, inviting me inside. I was completely undone.

I believe in that moment the Lord was showing me that I have always had a seat at the table. The door was never closed, I have always had the invitation inside. My place at the window was a personal choice I had made in refusing to receive my identity as a child and feeling as though somehow I was incapable or unworthy of adoption. My friend, if this resonates with you at all I want to encourage you to step inside the door. My prayer for you is that the Lord would reveal any hurt, earthly rejection, or untrue ways of thinking that has led you to a place of rejecting your identity as a child.

"Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgement, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:15-19

Friends this is incredible news! Those who have believed and received Jesus as our Savior have been adopted into the family of God and are continually being perfected in love by Love Himself. Perfect love casts out all fear. My sweet friend, if you find yourself struggling with the thoughts of being rejected or unworthy of God's affection I want to encourage you to invite Him to reveal the parts of your heart that perpetuate this narrative. He wants nothing more than to set you free from the bondage of orphanhood and fear. His desire is that you would take up your place in a seat at His table. He loved you first. The only way you and I are capable of loving Him is because He has already lavished us in His perfect love. Our sole responsibility is to walk into the door He has opened for us and take the seat at the table with our name on it. We are called to abide. He has done everything necessary to grant us access, we simply must choose it.

Remember how I mentioned earlier that this concept is one the Lord keeps teaching me and inviting me to explore? Well, I meant it. Fast forward about a year after this beautiful revelation from the Lord of my adoption into His family and freedom from the trap of an orphanhood mentality. Shortly after Adam and I found out we were pregnant we received some difficult news from the doctors. At 18 weeks pregnant we were told that, due to a large fibroid in my cervix that was blocking my birth canal, I was officially considered a high risk pregnancy. The doctors told us I would be incapable of a natural birth and they expressed serious concerns about my high risk for pre-term labor. Mere weeks after radical celebration of this child we had waited for for years came news that made everything seem coated with fear and heaviness. As we stepped into the elevator to leave this appointment I heard a sinister voice whisper in my ear, "You always knew the shoe would drop. This is just confirmation you should never get your hopes up."

Gross. Get behind me, satan.

Although I can now say that last statement with confidence, in that moment I fell headlong into the trap of despair and fear. If I am honest, deep down some part of me decided to turn the hope switch off and prepare for the worse. On the outside I was proclaiming faith and asking those around me to pray but on the inside I was preparing to give birth any moment, mentally running through scenarios of spending months in a NICU watching the tiny little legs I had just begun to feel kick in my womb struggle to gain strength and grow on their own. But worse of all I decided to mentally prepare to lose this precious child I had prayed for for years completely under the very religious sounding guise of "your will be done, Lord." This isn't to say that I wasn't genuinely surrendered to God's plan for the situation because I genuinely believe I was, I had just decided I had no right to assume His will would be one that provided the outcome I desired. I had placed myself outside at the window once again.

Shortly after our doctor appointment I was spending time with a dear friend of mine. We were in line for her kids after school pickup with her newborn (who was an answer to prayer and a huge faith builder for my journey to motherhood) asleep in the back seat. I was explaining to my friend about how I was "yielding to the Lord" in my situation and, in a moment of raw honesty, I shared with her that I had accepted the worst case scenario in an effort to protect my heart from more pain. I probably made it sound nice and spiritual, all under the cloak of being submitted to the Lord's plan and ultimately knowing I wasn't in control. However, this sweet friend of mine saw through all the spiritually sounding jargon in that moment. She's the kind of friend that will look you straight in the eye and say something so pointed and truth-filled (maybe even hard to swallow) with eyes that hold such deep compassion and love from the Lord. She is one of the greatest gifts in my life. Everyone deserves a friend like this one in their life. But in that moment my friend turned to me, looked me dead in the eyes, and said "Jordyn, the Lord has not left you as an orphan. He is a good Father whose desire is to give you good gifts. It's okay to tell him the desire of your heart for this situation." The way she looked at me in that moment reminded me of the Father standing in the doorway, extending his hand in my direction, inviting me inside. Without even realizing it, my friend gave me permission to approach the Father's table as a child yet again. It is one of the most beautiful things when we get to witness God's love poured out over by those He's placed around us. Thank you, Lord for friendships like these!

In that moment with my friend the Lord unraveled a deeper level of my heart that had been operating out of a place of orphanhood. A year prior He had shown me that I was always invited inside and in this moment He was showing me that, as a child, I was allowed to approach my Father and ask for His help. I was allowed to need Him. I had permission to not have it all together and to admit to Him my need for His intervention. This shifted everything for me in this situation. Instead of approaching God to say "I'll take whatever I can get in this situation" I began instead to say "Father, I know you are able to heal me and protect my son. I have faith that You can, but not my will, Yours be done." Do you notice the difference? My initial heart posture was one of an orphan, operating under the guise of surrender when in reality it was merely self preservation. What the Lord invited me into was a posture of humble reliance. He wanted me to know He was in control and choose to be surrendered to His will all while understanding I was allowed to desire a different outcome and humbly ask for His intervention. Spoiler alert: 12 weeks later and I just received a report from the doctor that I am completely healed. I am no longer high risk, our baby is perfectly healthy, and my body has been made completely capable of carrying my sweet child to full term. All because I am a child of a good, good Father.

This is the place into which I believe the Lord is inviting any of us who struggle with rejection or abandonment. He is inviting us to receive a love that never runs out, to drink from a well that never runs dry, and to eat from the table that offers the bread of life. This doesn't always mean He will answer every prayer in exactly the way we desire, and we are all called to understand that His ways are higher than ours and surrender to the fact we may not always understand why God heals when He does and then other times He doesn't. Whether or not you receive the thing you are asking the Lord for is not a reflection of your access to the Father or your spiritual superiority but rather an example of His sovereignty that is beyond our understanding. But the point is this - we no longer have to revert to orphanhood and be content with viewing the love of God through a foggy window. We are invited to reach out, grab the outstretched hand of the One who created us and follow Him to our place at the table. My friend, this is true of you. The Creator of the world delights in you. The Father sees you. Jesus died for and now intercedes for you. The Spirit has come to lead you in understanding. These are not blanket truths that only apply to my situation or others around you. These are personal. You have not been left or abandoned. On the contrary, you have been drawn into the Father's love since before you were born. My prayer for you is that through this testimony of mine the Lord would reveal to those hurting places deep inside your heart that since the beginning of time there has been a seat at the Father's table, for you.