Five Minutes of Bedlam and a Not-So-Ordinary Joe

Dysfunction for Dollars

It's a sad story that you hear all too often nowadays.  You can see it practically every day on one of the so-called talk shows.  Girl gets pregnant; current boyfriend is not the father; bedlam ensues.

I admit that I stopped for about five minutes on one of these shows this week.  If you've ever spent even five minutes watching one of these ridiculous displays, you know the script.  Introduce girl with totally dysfunctional life; introduce guy who makes her dysfunction look practically Cleaver-ish; introduce his new "love interest"; and let the shouting, name calling, and security enforcement begin as they strain to claw one another's eyes out before the next commercial break. The lure of the DNA test results that are "coming right up" is supposed to keep the audience engaged in the madness.

Lost sometimes in all the mayhem of these shows are the children and what their lives are and will be like.  One episode usually mentions multiple babies born to multiple women, fathered by who knows who...but for the demented pleasure of the viewers, they show all the backlash.  Now, I'm sure these shows are quite staged, but I have talked to enough social workers and police officers to know that they are not too far off from heartbreaking reality for way too many children.

Stop for a moment and imagine what type of lives the babies in these nightmarish situations endure.  No one is looking after their best interests...at least for far too long.  Imagine toddlers, little children, even teenagers growing up without even the slightest notion of normal.

A Stark Difference

A few weeks ago, I was reading a book about orphan care, about the failure of an entire nation to adequately care for the needs of the fatherless.  That's why Joe's story stood out so starkly.  The story started the same as on many of the "tabloid for TV" shows: teenage girlfriend pregnant, not his baby, emotions running wild.  He was prepared to walk away from her and the baby that was not his, and he would have had every right to do so.

Unlike most of the others, though, Joe decided to stick around.  He stuck with his girl through her pregnancy and eventually married her.  After enduring a trying delivery, she had a healthy baby.  Though the book doesn't say much about the rest of Joe's story, it insinuates that he was devoted to his now-wife and that he adopted the little boy and fathered him as his own. 

Well done, Joe.  Well done. 

Joe's son went on to great power and fame while Joe faded into the background, a quiet and often-forgotten figure but heroic in his own way.

Remembering Joe at Christmas

There's a line in the familiar Christmas song "Mary, Did You Know" that asks the musical question: "Mary, did you know that . . . this child that you've delivered, will soon deliver you?"  I wonder if Joseph ever pondered -- whether musically or not -- "Joseph, did you know that this child that you've adopted, will soon adopt you?"

This Christmas, as your family hopefully tells the Christmas story, consider Joseph as more than an outlying character.  His adoption of Jesus was more central to the story of redemption than most of us have ever thought. Joseph is not the fiance to be pitied or to be cast aside as a minor character in the story of Christmas; instead, he is the representation of God Himself, the God who offers salvation and adoption as sons to those of us who trust in the Son whom Joseph adopted.

I'll see you all back on the blog after Christmas.  Merry Christmas, everyone.

Thanks for reading.

4theVoiceless,
Al

To read more about Joseph's adoption of Jesus, check these blogs out:

Jason Kovacs on Love Large, the Abba Fund blog.
Paul Cooper on The Coop Report blog.

Both of these blogs mention Dr. Russell Moore's excellent book, Adopted for Life.  If you have never read it, you should.  You will gain more insight into God's adoption of us and how that is reflected through physical adoption than you could ever imagine.

My Lowest Point as a Pastor

Eighteen months ago I was at my low point as a pastor.  You couldn't have looked at me and known that at the time, probably, but there was a storm stirring in me.

During the previous summer, I had read a really harmless-looking little orange book called Radical, and it had intensified every area of my life as a Christ-follower.  I made some, well, radical changes to my own life, and I led my small group through a study of the book over the next few months -- with mixed response.  Most of them revved up their walk with Christ...for a few months.  Some continue to pursue Him with passion today.  I don't think it was as paradigm-shattering to anyone else as it was to me, though.  Looking back, I know I pushed too hard and much to quickly for my group members to "get" what I had "gotten."  I probably also gave too much credit to the little orange book and not enough to the Holy Spirit of God that was burning inside of me and that had burned inside of David Platt as he wrote it.


Fast forward through the first couple of months of 2011.  I was spending a few days of spiritual refreshing at my parents' cabin, as is my habit to do most every spring.  This time, I was spending a couple of days at a conference in Hattiesburg.  On February 28, 2011, I watched pastor after pastor take the stage and preach some of the most powerful, Gospel-centered messages I had ever heard.  And yet, this was my low point in ministry.

Over My Head

Several speakers into the conference, it began to occur to me that I was in way over my head; these guys had strings of initials after their names as long as my arm.  (The only initials I have after my name are B.S - draw your own conclusions.)  Each of them seemed to be a pastor, author, professor, advocate of some world-changing cause, etc., etc.  And here's the kicker:  they were all much younger than me! 


Here I was, 44 years old at the time, with my heart pounding to make a difference in this world for the kingdom of God but with seemingly no outlets.  I went back to mom and dad's cabin that night with a very heavy heart, considering my wasted life.  Why didn't God call me to ministry sooner?  Sixteen years as a high school baseball coach -- did I really even make a difference?  Were all the other years for naught?  And how much difference was I making now, even after a call to the ministry?  All these were questions I threw up to God during the night of February 28, 2011.

And then, on Day 2... 

 

God responded.   Russell Moore, in his message on Colossians 2:16-23, made a couple of statements that the Holy Spirit used to interrupt my self-absorbed melancholy.  Here is what I wrote:

• "The only thing that can kill what is killing you is the gospel of Jesus Christ."
• "Why would I allow myself to be judged or disqualified by some idea of what my life and ministry should look like when I am a part of a living being in the body of Christ?"

That word disqualified hit me right where I was.  That's exactly what I felt.  My eyes were on the other parts of the body of Christ and not on the head, Christ Himself.  I was starting to get what God was saying to me, but He had an exclamation point for me in the next message from Tyler Jones:

• "Coveting robs me of the joy of being who God made me to be."

This was one of those statements that made me do a double-take. Looking around, I wondered if everyone else got that like I did.  No, apparently not.  Apparently, that was just for me.  I had done what I always tend to do: Identify the the issue and begin to deal with it.  God was telling me to acknowledge my situation for what it was, the sin of coveting my neighbor's influence.  Before I could move ahead, God wanted me to call my covetousness what is was: sin, an offense against Him.

I don't know about you, but I don't particularly like a fault in my life being pointed out starkly as sin.  But there it was.  That wasn't the low point, though, because God was now speaking to me.  It wasn't pleasant, but it was God.  He was calling me back to my first love, Jesus Christ, and focusing my eyes on the opportunities, small though they may have seemed at the time, that I had right in front of me.

I had two more opportunities to speak to the kids in our church's AWANA program on the grand story of redemption throughout Scripture.  I had my weekly meetings with my discipleship partner.  It didn't seem like much influence at the time, but in reading back through my journal, I am reminded that 12 third- and fourth-graders gave their lives to Christ on March 9, 2011, and that two ladies led people to Christ for the first time that night (not the last for either of them).  And now, I am joining my discipleship partner on a mission trip to Haiti next month as he continues to pursue God in bigger and bigger ways in his life.

Conception

And then there was one more inconspicuous little nugget from March 5, 2011.  I found it tucked into a long list of things I was asking God for his heart about on behalf of our church:  "I pray that You would open our eyes to feel the same about...orphans as You do...."  And thus began my journey into God's heart for the orphan.  I suppose that 4theVoicless was conceived that morning in that prayer.  And because of what we know about God's heart for the orphan and because we as the church are God's hands and feet in this world, we fully expect to change the world.

Thanks for reading.  Now fix your eyes firmly on Jesus and change the world yourself.
Al