Good Friday

I came in to work early to attempt to get something done before everyone else got here today. So much for that idea. Instead I am writing a blog post. A rambling one, likely, as I’ve got too many thoughts swimming all at the same time.



We’ve been getting a lot of comments lately, via the blog and email and in person, about how good God is.

Amen!

However, I want to clarify. God is most certainly good. But he isn’t good because we get to bring Sophie home next week.

God is good. Period.

Because of his goodness, we get to bring Sophie home next week. But he would still be good if the outcome didn’t make us as happy. God was still good when we waited and waited with no word on when we would get a referral. God was good when we grew more and more frustrated by our agencies lack of communication. God is still good in all the adoptions that didn’t go as smoothly as ours.

I’ve just finished listening to Matt Chandler’s current series on Habakkuk. It has been such a good series, and I’d highly suggest you download them all and listen. In the last sermon, he talks about the very last verses of Habakkuk…

Though the fig tree should not blossom,
nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
GOD, the Lord, is my strength;
he makes my feet like the deer's;
he makes me tread on my high places.
To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
(Habakkuk 3:17-19 ESV)

Did you catch the “yet” in the middle? Tom at EVBC always points out that when you see a “yet” or a “but” in the Bible to pay attention. Habakkuk says that even though there will be no food this year, or any sign of food in the future… he will rejoice. Not because God is going to bless Israel with abundance and prosperity, but because God is going to send Israel into captivity.

Why? Because “God the Lord is my strength.”

We’ve gotten a lot of comments lately as well about how awesome it is that we are adopting, with the sense that we great for doing it. The guy at the Apple store last night told me he gave me “much respect” for adopting. No way.

God is good. Not us.

(If only I had actually said that to the Apple store guy. Sheesh.)

I’ve said from the beginning that adoption wasn’t exactly my first choice. I had to be convinced. I didn’t want my life to get any more frustrating, more difficult, more expensive, more busy.

Instead, our lives have just been more blessed. And she isn’t even home yet.

I made the “mistake” of cranking up Page CXVI on the way to work this morning. Halfway through the first song, and I was already a mess. The ladies at the It’s a Grind coffee shop probably wondered why some teary-eyed dude cranking old school hymns was getting coffee at 6 AM. Seriously, it is 2 minutes from out house, and I was wrecked by time I got there.

Then a guy from work stops by my desk this morning while I am writing this and reduces me to full on tears with one comment about "I hear you are going to Africa this weekend. How has that adoption process gone for you?"

By the time I get to church tonight for Good Friday, I'm not sure what kind of shape I will be in.

Anyways, back to my song choice this morning...

“Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.”

We leave on Easter weekend, after chasing our daughter for two years, to bring her home. We sought her when a stranger. We’ve sacrificed money, time, stress. Has it been frustrating? Heart breaking? Difficult? Yes, yes, and yes. Is this what I would have chosen, had it been up to me? Nope. Have I, in the midst of if, been saying “Thank you God for not making this easy!” No.

And yet…

If this had all been easy, and we had cranked out a super easy adoption in six months, I think I would have been in much more danger of just checking off the “cared for orphans” box on my Christian resume. Instead, I’ve got just a tiny, tiny glimpse of God’s love for us. A picture of his adoption of us as his sons and daughters. Seeking us when a stranger. Rescuing us from danger. Interposing his precious blood.

And in the very next verse of that hymn, a reminder that none of this was my doing…

"O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above."

Is there any other religion that celebrates this? The fact that even my very best acts don’t measure up to the standards of my God? That I am constantly, constantly prone to wander? That anytime I am close to God, it isn’t due to my effort but because God has bound my wandering heart to his? That if left up to my own works, I would be doomed to failure?

And yet…

God is good. Period.

And so, he sent his very Son, to live the life we couldn’t live, and die the death we deserved. What other religion celebrates that? The brutal death of our God, to satisfy the punishment that we deserved? In order that we might be adopted as sons of God? That it is not the good we have done, but is “nothing but the blood of Jesus” that rescues us from our sin? That God saves sinners, and that nothing on this earth can ever snatch us out of his hand?

Good Friday indeed. The good news indeed. Can there be any better news?

"Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise."