When you adopt a child at an older age, you may be the first person to ever bring discipline and authority into their lives in any meaningful way. You become to them the embodiment of the Law. It is not surprising then when they act according to their nature. They may be rude, rebellious or even call down curses upon you as one of my daughters did. Over time they can bring a great deal of suffering into your family. However, this is not surprising as Paul tells us in
2Ti 3:12-13 'Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived."
The shock comes to us as adoptive parents when we realize the source of this persecution comes from our own child. But before we run away, or try to rid ourselves of this difficult child we need to understand the roll of suffering in the life of the Christian. One reason that Christians suffer is for the sake of the gospel and those that will be saved. Again the apostle Paul says:
2Ti 2:8-10 Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. (ESV)
Here the Apostle Paul gives us a reason for his suffering, that the elect may obtain the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. We as parents should likewise be willing to suffer in order that our children might come to salvation.
In my own life, I have seen this worked out. One of my daughters came to us from a disruption. When she came into our house, she was bitter and angry. In addition, she had very little experience with authority or discipline. On more than one occasion, she litterally called on God to curse me. To this day, I still have scars on my arm from one episode with her.
However, today she is not only my daughter, but my sister in Christ. In the day I saw he heart turn to Christ, I truly understood:
Act 5:40-41 and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.
Oh, that God, who is rich in mercies, might grant us the will to suffer for the sake of the gospel, whether in the world or in our own homes.
I hope to give some practical help for dealing with suffering in future posts.
Showing posts with label Theology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theology. Show all posts
Monday, July 23, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Theology Matters - The Doctrine of Suffering
Getting back to the theology matters subject, I have been pondering how to say something that I have seen be a constant problem with families we have counseled. The problem is that they lack any doctrine of suffering. When life becomes difficult their first response is to run away giving up on the child that they have so recently adopted. Having found that, instead of a grateful child willing to obey because of the great sacrifice these parents have made, they have been given a sinful, angry child, they respond with something similar to “God surely wouldn’t want us to be this unhappy, would he?”
As I considered this I ran across the following quote from John Piper’s The Hidden Smile of God. He says well much of what I have want to say.
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The Christian Life is Hill Difficulty
Bunyan’s life and labor call us to live like Pilgrim on the way to the Celestial City. His suffering and his story summon us, in the prosperous and pleasure-addicted West, to see Christian life in a radically different way than we ordinarily do. There is a great gulf between the Christianity that wrestles with whether to worship at the cost of imprisonment and death, and the Christianity that wrestles with whether the kids should play soccer on Sunday morning. The full title of The Pilgrim’s Progress shows the essence of the pilgrim path: “The Pilgrim’s Progress from this World, to that Which is to Come: Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream wherein Is Discovered, the Manner of His Setting out, his Dangerous Journey, and Safe Arrival at the Desired Country.” For Bunyan in fact and fiction, the Christian life is a “Dangerous Journey.”
The narrow way leads from the Wicket Gate to the Hill Difficulty.
The narrow way lay right up the hill, and the name of the going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty. Christian now went to the Spring, and drank thereof, to refresh himself (Isaiah 49:10), and then began to go up the Hill, saying,
The Hill, though high, I covet to ascend,
The Difficulty will not me offend;
For I perceive the Way to life lies here.
Come, pluck the Heart, let’s neither faint nor fear;
Better, though difficult, the Right Way go,
Than wrong, though easy, where the End is Woe
This is the Christian life for Bunyan – experienced in prison and explained in parables. But we modern, western Christians have some to see safety and ease as a right. We move away from bad neighborhood. We leave hard relationships. We don’t go to dangerous unreached people groups.
Bunyan beckons us to listen to Jesus and his apostles again. Jesus never called us to a life of safety, nor even to a fair fight. “Lambs in the midst of wolves” is the way he describes or sending (Luke 10:3). “If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!” (Matthew10:25). “He who loves his lifes loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal” (John 12:25). “Whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33, RSV).
The apostle Paul continues the same call: “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). We are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him” (Romans 8:17). We should not be “moved by … afflictions ... [since] this it to be our lot” (1 Thessalonians 3:3 RSV). Faith and suffering are two great gifts of God: “To you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29). The apostle Peter confirms the theme: “Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for the testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12). It isn’t strange. It’s normal. That is the message of The Pilgrim’s Progress. The Hill Difficulty is the only path to heaven. There is no other. Suffering is as normal as a father disciplining a son. That is how the writer to the Hebrews describes the suffering of the saints: “God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons” (Hebrews 12:7-8). The pattern is rooted in the Old Testament itself. So the psalmist says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous” (Psalm 34:19; see Galatians 4:29).
Oh, how we need Bunyan! We are soft and thin-skinned. We are worldly; we fit far too well into our God-ignoring culture. We are fearful and anxious and easily discouraged. We have taken our eyes off the Celestial City and the deep pleasures of knowing God and denying ourselves the lesser things that titillate for a moment but then shrink our capacities for great joy. Bunyan’s Seasonable Counsel for us is: Take up your cross daily and follow Jesus. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).
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In light of the sufferings of those Christians who have gone before, and in the light of the sufferings of Our Savior on our behalf, O that God would grant us mercy because we do not want to suffer on the behalf of a child.
As I considered this I ran across the following quote from John Piper’s The Hidden Smile of God. He says well much of what I have want to say.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Christian Life is Hill Difficulty
Bunyan’s life and labor call us to live like Pilgrim on the way to the Celestial City. His suffering and his story summon us, in the prosperous and pleasure-addicted West, to see Christian life in a radically different way than we ordinarily do. There is a great gulf between the Christianity that wrestles with whether to worship at the cost of imprisonment and death, and the Christianity that wrestles with whether the kids should play soccer on Sunday morning. The full title of The Pilgrim’s Progress shows the essence of the pilgrim path: “The Pilgrim’s Progress from this World, to that Which is to Come: Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream wherein Is Discovered, the Manner of His Setting out, his Dangerous Journey, and Safe Arrival at the Desired Country.” For Bunyan in fact and fiction, the Christian life is a “Dangerous Journey.”
The narrow way leads from the Wicket Gate to the Hill Difficulty.
The narrow way lay right up the hill, and the name of the going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty. Christian now went to the Spring, and drank thereof, to refresh himself (Isaiah 49:10), and then began to go up the Hill, saying,
The Hill, though high, I covet to ascend,
The Difficulty will not me offend;
For I perceive the Way to life lies here.
Come, pluck the Heart, let’s neither faint nor fear;
Better, though difficult, the Right Way go,
Than wrong, though easy, where the End is Woe
This is the Christian life for Bunyan – experienced in prison and explained in parables. But we modern, western Christians have some to see safety and ease as a right. We move away from bad neighborhood. We leave hard relationships. We don’t go to dangerous unreached people groups.
Bunyan beckons us to listen to Jesus and his apostles again. Jesus never called us to a life of safety, nor even to a fair fight. “Lambs in the midst of wolves” is the way he describes or sending (Luke 10:3). “If they have called the head of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign the members of his household!” (Matthew10:25). “He who loves his lifes loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal” (John 12:25). “Whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33, RSV).
The apostle Paul continues the same call: “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). We are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him” (Romans 8:17). We should not be “moved by … afflictions ... [since] this it to be our lot” (1 Thessalonians 3:3 RSV). Faith and suffering are two great gifts of God: “To you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake” (Philippians 1:29). The apostle Peter confirms the theme: “Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for the testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you” (1 Peter 4:12). It isn’t strange. It’s normal. That is the message of The Pilgrim’s Progress. The Hill Difficulty is the only path to heaven. There is no other. Suffering is as normal as a father disciplining a son. That is how the writer to the Hebrews describes the suffering of the saints: “God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons” (Hebrews 12:7-8). The pattern is rooted in the Old Testament itself. So the psalmist says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous” (Psalm 34:19; see Galatians 4:29).
Oh, how we need Bunyan! We are soft and thin-skinned. We are worldly; we fit far too well into our God-ignoring culture. We are fearful and anxious and easily discouraged. We have taken our eyes off the Celestial City and the deep pleasures of knowing God and denying ourselves the lesser things that titillate for a moment but then shrink our capacities for great joy. Bunyan’s Seasonable Counsel for us is: Take up your cross daily and follow Jesus. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).
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In light of the sufferings of those Christians who have gone before, and in the light of the sufferings of Our Savior on our behalf, O that God would grant us mercy because we do not want to suffer on the behalf of a child.
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Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Theology Matters
As we go back to a new beginning I want to address some foundational issues. We have many times talked to individuals who were struggling with their child that they had adopted. In these cases we have identified three primary reasons why they struggle:
A lack of knowledge. With a child that you have had from birth you have as complete a knowledge of the child as is possible with finite human beings. You know their genetics, their family history, their culture, and life experiences. With an older adopted child this is seldom true. While the results of this lack can be frustrating. Time, patience, study, and listening to the child will eventually solve most of these problems.
An unregenerate heart. Many of the problems we have dealt with have been the result of an unregenerate heart on the part of the parents. Unbelieving, they are simply unwilling to ask "what does God say about this issue" and then obey. Sadly, these are often individuals who profess the name of Christ. The answer in this case is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Bad theology. This is the one I hope to address in these series of post. John Frame says in his The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God that theology is “the application of the Word of God by persons to all areas of life.” As such theology is the place where the Word of God intersects with life. A failure to understand God's Word or a failure to rightly apply it means trouble for the individual. If someone buys an appliance in the store and ignores the warnings in the user's manual, he can expect problems to result. How much more so the individual who lives life ignoring the designer and His revelation of how life is to be lived in relation to Him.
In the upcoming articles I hope to identify some of the bad theology we have seen, and demonstrate how it shapes the struggles in ours and others' lives. Of course, in keeping with the purpose of this blog, we will focus on the adoption of older foreign children.
Till then
By His Grace,
Bob
A lack of knowledge. With a child that you have had from birth you have as complete a knowledge of the child as is possible with finite human beings. You know their genetics, their family history, their culture, and life experiences. With an older adopted child this is seldom true. While the results of this lack can be frustrating. Time, patience, study, and listening to the child will eventually solve most of these problems.
An unregenerate heart. Many of the problems we have dealt with have been the result of an unregenerate heart on the part of the parents. Unbelieving, they are simply unwilling to ask "what does God say about this issue" and then obey. Sadly, these are often individuals who profess the name of Christ. The answer in this case is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Bad theology. This is the one I hope to address in these series of post. John Frame says in his The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God that theology is “the application of the Word of God by persons to all areas of life.” As such theology is the place where the Word of God intersects with life. A failure to understand God's Word or a failure to rightly apply it means trouble for the individual. If someone buys an appliance in the store and ignores the warnings in the user's manual, he can expect problems to result. How much more so the individual who lives life ignoring the designer and His revelation of how life is to be lived in relation to Him.
In the upcoming articles I hope to identify some of the bad theology we have seen, and demonstrate how it shapes the struggles in ours and others' lives. Of course, in keeping with the purpose of this blog, we will focus on the adoption of older foreign children.
Till then
By His Grace,
Bob
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Jennifer and Micah
Our eldest daughter, Jennifer Grace, is engaged to be married to Micah Smyth from Michigan. Theirs has been what most folks would consider an unusual relationship, but few of you who are familiar with our family will be surprised at that. ;-) In order to respect their privacy I won't share a lot of details in a public arena like this. I will say that both of them were actually quite pleased when their moms played "matchmaker" for them. Rather than dating, they were looking for a lifelong mate, so they began the relationship learning as much as they could about each other and their differing lifestyles. They had discussed marriage before they even had a chance to meet each other face to face.
Micah is a wonderful and godly young man. We could not have hoped for a better husband for Jennifer than him. He is very strong in his faith and he comes from a Christian family. He works with his hands in a number of different areas - logging, building log homes, carpentry, farming, etc.
Prayers for these young folks would be greatly appreciated as they work on their relationship and plan for their future.
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