ADOPTED - FLAWS & ALL

They say adoption is a beautiful picture of God's plan of salvation. I agree! But what we are experiencing through adopting an older child is helping us see the picture of God's plan of salvation with HD clarity!

Eli has some great qualities about him. We have seen him give up his food so a homeless person could have a meal. We have seen him go out of his way to care for and comfort younger children. We see he has a great heart and that speaks volumes! However, he is almost 14 going on 10. For the past 14 years he has been trained and shaped by things that are very different from how he would have been trained and shaped had he been a part of our family (not separated from us) for all these years.

I am born separated from my Heavenly Father. I have been trained and shaped by this world. Had I been by God's side from birth things may have been different. I have faults and flaws that are ingrained in the fabric of my being because of the separation I experienced from God early on in my life.

God has always know my faults and flaws and even knew them before He chose to accept me and adopt me as His son. He knew I would struggle to obey even though He would clearly tell me the same things over and over and over again. He knew I would do silly things that would just simply be annoying. He knew I would not change over night and that I would never fully measure up. And yet He still accepted me, chose to love me, chose to adopt me and went as far as to give His only perfect Son's life so I could become His son. He traded the life of His perfect Son for the life of a disobedient, annoying, foolish, fleshly son who would never be able to love and honor Him the way He deserves.

Would we have adopted Eli knowing how hard it would be to accept and learn to love him through all his ingrained faults and flaws? I do not know the answer to that question and I am glad, in His sovereignty, Father did not reveal this to us ahead of time. Had we known ahead of time - in our weakness from to all our ingrained faults and flaws - we may have passed on and missed the blessing of having Eli Xialong (Little Dragon) as our Son!

Father, thank you for loving me in spite of all my many faults and flaws. PLEASE help me love others the same way you love me. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

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