The Love-Hate, Hate-Love Thing

To some it sounds strange when those in the adoption community herald how important it is to God that orphans find their forever homes.

“Why would God care so much?”

“Aren’t orphans better off where they are?  At least they’re given the essentials of life.”

“Isn’t God more concerned with ‘lost’ people?”

Or even something as heartless as this…

“If orphans die where they are, they’re going straight to heaven anyway, right?”

These questions often come up.  And if they’re not spoken or written, they’re in thoughts.

The simple answer to why orphans matter so much to God is this…Are you ready for it?...Here it comes…da-da-da-DA!...

BECAUSE ORPHANS MATTER TO GOD.

I told you it was the simple answer.  But shouldn’t that be all that matters to us—that it matters to God?  I mean, why else are we here as Christians?  To do what matters to US and to let God take care of what matters to HIM? 

I recently spoke with a woman who’s dying.  She’s very lucid and conversant.  She also feels extraordinarily uncomfortable with the outpouring of love—cards, letters, phone calls, visits—from close friends and from those whom she hardly knows. 

So I asked her, “How does God show His love for us?”  She couldn’t answer.  He does it in many ways, I told her, but one very common way is that He uses people as His vessels.  That’s why we get checks in the mail with extra money that we prayed so desperately for.  That’s why when we feel down, we get that timely phone call from a close sister.  That’s why when circumstances are not in our favor, God spoils us by mobilizing people to help us, even though we never spoke to anyone about our plight.

God uses my hand to touch another.  He uses my arms to hug someone He wants to hug.  He uses my tongue to speak the things that build up another who needs to hear it.

So I ask you, How does God care for the widow?  How does God meet the needs of the poor?  How does God visit the prisoner?  The sick?  The orphan?

It’s me.  It’s you.  It’s our neighbor.

So if things like this are critically important to the Creator, then how do you think the devil reacts to it? 

It all comes down to this simple principle:

If God loves something, satan hates it.  And if satan loves something, God hates it.

It’s not rocket science.  It’s biblical logic.

Of course satan does not want orphans rescued from where they are, regardless of how long their lifespan will be—BECAUSE GOD WANTS THEM CARED FOR!

And that’s good enough for me, and it should be good enough for any Christian who lives to please his or her Savior.  This is what drives a couple to fly thousands of miles to a country so different from their own, not knowing what they’ll find in a dilapidated orphanage, not knowing if that tiny heartbeat encased in rice paper-thin skin will endure the plane trip back home, much less another day once they are home.

This is the stuff that only Christians have whose souls long for God “as the deer panteth for the water.”

Christians who love what God loves and hate what God hates…at any cost to ourselves.