Making Room–God’s Heart for the “One”

Well the Making Room campaign is nice and all, but I’ve really got one thing on my mind.  No it’s not the election either.  Today is Laylah’s birthday.  If you don’t know, and I’m not sure how you couldn’t, we brought her home from the hospital when she was four days old as a foster child and had the privilege to adopt her just about a month ago.  Now she is a part of our forever family.  Since that’s what’s on my mind today but I’m supposed to talk about Making Room, I’ll tie them together somehow.

It’s pretty common for people to ask either Heidi or me about how unusual/awesome it is that we love her so much.  The implication is that because she is adopted, it must be different somehow.  We get that, but we don’t feel different.  She is ours and we love her with our whole hearts.  I don’t even like any expression that starts with, “We love her just like she were…”  She’s not like one of our own or anything like that.  She IS our daughter in every way.  I don’t know that I could have predicted that we would feel this way, but there is no denying that is how all four of us feel about her.

This last year with her has taught me so much about the love of God.  If we, as his adopted sons and daughters, are loved by him as much (even more!) as I love her, then I believe that we have totally underestimated his love for us.  He loves us with an overwhelming passion.  In addition, he wants more and more people to be his children.  He wants to adopt more and more of us.  He loves the whole world, that’s why he sent his son (John 3:16)

Jesus illustrated this love in the story of the lost sheep (Luke 15:1-7).  In that parable, a shepherd has 100 sheep and 99 of them are fine but one is missing.  He then leaves the 99 to search for the 1 lost sheep.  If that is the model of God’s love for us, then we need to reflect that.  We need to sacrifice in order to go and find one person who is lost.  This is why we are moving, this is why we are Making Room.  The “99” of us are fine, but God’s heart is strong for those who don’t know.  He loves the “1.”

God is always searching for the one.  He is always reaching.  Let us have that same heart.