DIG DEEP
Excavating the Depths of God and His Glorious Riches
August 10th, 2022
SPIRITUAL ORPHANS
Matthew 6:21, ‘”For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”’ (NIV)
We are learning that there is vast spiritual wealth available to each one of us who call ourselves Christians, who consider ourselves children of God. It is buried just under the surface of the Christian life, waiting to be discovered and drawn out. This month we are headed on a dig, so we can explore, excavate and extract the glorious riches God has for His children.
We read already this week about a little boy named Teddy who received his heart’s desire finally, who got specifically chosen and adopted by a family who picked him out of all other children to be theirs. Let’s unpack Teddy’s story and link the common denominators we share with Teddy, and children like Teddy who find themselves parentless.
In our previous story, Teddy, sadly became an orphan. He entered the system and began a long pathway of foster families and group homes. In Teddy’s case, the places where he lived and the adults who took him in weren’t either good nor bad, but it wasn’t his own mum and dad he had known and loved and who loved him. His heart lay hurting and waiting while his voice, broken and hidden inside, remained silent. Teddy became very watchful of others, hopeful, but realistic as he watched the other children, one by one, be chosen by families, while he stayed on the inside looking out, his words locked inside of him. I imagine Teddy wrote many thoughts on a tablet in his heart, picturing what his broken dreams and hopeful wishes for a future he dared even imagine.
And then! One day it happened! A family chose Teddy! I cannot fathom the trepidation and joy, the finality and the promise, the yearning and the completion, all mingling in his thoughts—and the thoughts of other foster children—all needing not just homes, but ultimately to be loved, to be picked. We all have been born with a spiritual deficit inside of us as we long for the spiritual wealth of acceptance and love to be dug out of the hidden places inside. That hole you were born with that cries out for someone to care for you and love you and meet your needs from your very first breath was placed in each one of us by a Holy God. He knew our hollowness inside would need to be filled first by parents He gave us too (a divine plan that sadly gets shattered too often) and then by Himself throughout the course of our lives, and nothing else would compare or be able to permeate that void inside but Him.
Like Teddy, we are all orphans, spiritually. We may have an earthly mother and/or father—in fact, we all had to have two people who birthed us; that’s how we got here—but until the moment we come to Christ, denouncing our identity with the world to receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, God as our Father, and Holy Spirit as our Helper, we are spiritual orphans. Like Teddy, we are waiting, but we don’t know what we are waiting for. We try on so many things in this life to see if that might just be what we have been watching the window for and why we’ve been holding our breath. I believe we don’t know it truly until we experience it for ourselves, our spiritual adoption into God’s family. When we have that encounter with God, is when I think it becomes real, and the reality of the truth is that He chose you and me. He picked us to be His family.
The authenticity of this is overwhelming to me, to be chosen by God. I picture the look on my face matching that of Teddy’s, the awe he experienced as he realized the people who stood before him had arms held open wide for him to run into. Not only that but they were choosing to share their legacy with a stranger, someone they did not know, someone who had nothing to bring into the relationship, but they chose to believe he would become theirs and would bring joy and fullness in the time to come. Like Teddy, I have nothing to bring into this offer of adoption my Heavenly Father proposed to me, but I see the way He looks at me with belief and grace and hope, and it causes me to want to know the purpose He has for me alone.
Teddy arrived to his new home with his new mum and dad and Grammy and slowly climbed from the car. He snapped his mouth shut, reminding himself to not look like a fool with his mouth hanging open. The home which stood before him was like a mansion, the grasses green and flowers cheery in the window boxes. He stood there with his hands twisted behind his back until his new daddy nudged him forward.
‘Go on, son. It’s okay, it’s your home too. Go open the door and step inside.’ One foot tediously in front of the other; it felt like a mile ‘til he reached the big brass doorknob. He turned it tenaciously and he held his breath as the door fell open. Teddy could not believe his eyes and what he saw inside. ‘Go on,’ his new daddy said again. ‘It’s your home too. In fact, it’s all yours now. Would you like to see your bedroom?’ Teddy opened his mouth, and just like before, nothing came out, so sadly he nodded his head. His father took his hand and led him down the hallway and nudged him again inside the room. ‘Welcome home, Teddy,’ his father said, ‘This is your forever room. We’ve been waiting a long time for you. Welcome home.’ Teddy looked up, a smile eating his lips, and suddenly he felt a vibration in his throat. ‘Me too, Dad, me too.’
Hosea 14:3, ‘For in You, the fatherless find compassion.’
2 Corinthians 2:10b: ‘The Spirit, not content to flit around on the surface, dives into the depths of God, and brings out what God had planned all along.’ (MSG)
