Ryan's words

I wanted to post the following article Ryan wrote in his July newsletter for our students and their families at our church.

As I sit and type it is pushing 4am and sleep is probably still a good distance away for me. I am wired. Why? Well, I’m glad you asked. I just got off the phone with my wife and four amazing Ethiopian children whom I’ve yet to meet in person. And that event has me quite alive at the moment.

During this past week, Jessica has been in Ethiopia and I have been an emotional wreck. Although not for the reasons you may think. Sure I miss my bride greatly, but that’s not it. And certainly I wish I were there to meet our children as well, but that’s still not what has caused my eyes to sweat so profusely. God has been teaching me something about His love.

The parallel between our adopting children and our adoption by the Father through the work of Christ (see Ephesians 1) had been brought to my attention sometime ago. Many thanks to Adopted For Life by Dr. Russell Moore. And the more this truth has had time to marinate in my brain the more real and breathtaking it has become. But this week something different had a hold of me. I was missing my wife and thinking of these children and the thought occurred to me that they don’t really know what it’s like here; what it will be like to live with me and Jess. All they know is what they’ve got and they don’t realize or understand yet what they will soon have. God grabbed this opportunity to help me know that I don’t really know what our inheritance is either. Understand that we are not merely saved from hell, death, and sin but we are saved to eternal life with the God who loved, created, and rescued us! We can’t really know all that awaits us or the depth from which we are being saved, but it is vast.

Jessica and I are going to great length to bring these kids home. We love them and are doing everything in our power to get them here with us. And it hit me this week, the great lengths that God went to save us! We are spending time, money and effort. Jesus gave His life! He left heaven. He left perfect community and walked among us so that by His tortuous death and glorious resurrection He might reconcile us to Himself. What an amazing thing!

I believe with all of my being that adoption is the clearest most beautiful picture of the Gospel that we have among us. Marriage is certainly a great picture of Christ and the church, as His bride. But adoption is a better picture only in that it is personal rather than corporate.

Maybe the most amazing part about it is that as beautiful as it is, it’s minute in comparison to His great love for us. We have chosen to love these four kids that we didn’t know. They’ve never wronged us. In our eyes they are innocent and deserve love. They are made in God’s image. Yet we, in our sinfulness, have transgressed an infinitely holy God and still He chose to love us, redeem us, and bring us into His glorious presence.