A Place at God's Table

 

A Place at God’s Table

A Place at God's Table - Audio/Visual 

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. (Eph. 1:3-5)

Between 1854 and 1929, about two hundred thousand orphans and abandoned children in eastern cities were placed on westbound trains and shipped across the United States in search of homes and families. Many of the children had lost their parents through epidemic. Others were children of down-on-their-luck immigrants. Some were orphaned by the Civil War, but they all needed homes. Loaded on trains in groups of thirty to forty, they stopped in rural areas for “viewings.” The children were lined up on the platform like livestock at a County Fair and potential parents asked questions, evaluated health and even examined teeth. If selected, the children went to their homes. If not, they got back on the train to the next stop. The Orphan Train. Lee Nailling remembers the experience.

He had been living at the Jefferson County Orphan Home for two years when he, as an eight-year-old, was taken with his two younger brothers to a train station in New York City. The day before, his biological father had handed him a pink envelope that bore the father's name and address. He told the boy to write him as soon as he reached his destination. Lee placed the envelope in his coat pocket so no one would take it. The train embarked for Texas, and Lee and his brothers soon fell asleep. When Lee awoke, the pink envelope was gone; he never saw it again. I'd love to tell you that Lee's father found him. That the man, unwilling to pass another second without his sons, sold every possession he owned so that he could reunite his family. I'd love to describe the moment when Lee heard his father say, "Son, it's me! I came for you." Lee’s biography, unfortunately, contains no such event. But yours does.

Long ago, “… even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” (Eph. 1:4-5) There’s something in you that God loves. Not just appreciates but loves. You cause his eyes to widen, his heart to beat faster. He loves you, and he accepts you. Don't we all want to know that? Jacob did.

The Old Testament relates the story of this cunning, slippery, sly soul who was not beyond pulling the wool over his father's eyes to advance his own agenda. He spent his early years collecting wives, money and livestock the way some men today collect wives, money and cars. But Jacob grew restless. By midlife he had an ache in his heart that caravans and concubines couldn't comfort, so he loaded up his family and struck out for his home country. He was only a short jaunt from the Promised Land when he pitched a tent near the Jabbok River and told the family to go on without him – he needed to be alone. With his fears? Perhaps. Maybe to gather his courage. Or with his thoughts? Possibly. A break from the kids and camels would probably be nice. We aren't told why he went to the river.

But we are told about a "Man [who] wrestled with him until the breaking of day." (Gen. 32:24) Yes, "Man" with a capital “M.” This was no common man. Out of the dark he pounced. Through the night the two fought, flopping and plopping in Jabbok's mud. At one point Jacob had the best of the Man until the Man decided to settle the matter once and for all. With a deft jab to the hip, he left Jacob writhing in pain. The jolt cleared Jacob's vision and he realized, “I'm tangling with God.” He grabbed hold of the Man and held on for dear life. "I will not let You go unless You bless me!" he insisted. (v. 26) What does that mean? God in the mud? A knock-down, drag-out fight to the finish? Jacob clinging and then limping? Sounds more like a bar brawl than a Bible story.

But the blessing request? I get that part. Distill it down to today’s language, and Jacob was asking, "God, do I matter to you?" I'd ask the same question. Given a face-to-face encounter with the Man, I'd venture, "Do you know who I am? In the great scheme of things, do I count for anything?" Because so many messages tell us we don't. We get laid off at work and declined for credit. Everything from acne to Alzheimer's leaves us feeling like a teen without a date to the prom. So, we react. We validate our existence with a flurry of activity. We do more, buy more and achieve more. Like Jacob, we wrestle. All our wrestling, I suppose, is simply our asking that all-consuming question: "Do I matter?"

All of grace, I believe, is God's definitive reply: "Be blessed, my child. I accept you. I have adopted you into my family." Adopted children are chosen children. That's not the case with biological kids. When the doctor handed me to John Sterling, my dad had no exit option. No loophole. No choice. He couldn't give me back to the doctor and ask for a better-looking or smarter son. The hospital made him take me home. But if you were adopted, your parents chose you. Surprise pregnancies happen, but surprise adoptions? Never heard of one. Your adoptive parents could have picked a different gender, color or ancestry, but they selected you. They wanted you in their family. But you object, "Oh, but if they could have seen the rest of my life, they might have changed their minds." And that’s the point.

God saw our entire lives from beginning to end, and in spite of what he saw he was still convinced "to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.” (Eph. 1:5) We can now live "like God's very own children, adopted into his family – calling him 'Father, dear Father.' . . . And since we are his children, we will share his treasures – for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too." (Rom. 8:15, 17) It really is that simple. To accept God's grace and forgiveness is to accept God's offer to be adopted into his family. Your identity is not in your possessions, talents, tattoos or accomplishments. Nor are you defined by your divorce, deficiencies, debt or dumb decisions. You are God's child. You get to call him "Papa." You "may approach God with freedom and confidence." (Eph. 3:12) You receive the blessings of his special love (1 John 4:9-11) and provision. (Luke 11:11-13) And you will inherit the riches of Christ and reign with him forever. (Rom. 8:17)

But the adoption is horizontal as well as vertical. You are included in the forever family. Dividing walls of hostility are broken down, and community is created on the basis of a common Father. Instant family – worldwide. So rather than trying to come up with reasons to feel good about yourself, trust God's verdict, instead. If God loves you, you must be worth loving. If he wants to have you in his kingdom, then you must be worth having. God's love and forgiveness invites you to change your attitude about yourself and take sides with God against your own feelings of rejection.

Meanwhile, do you remember Lee? Well, things got worse before they got better. He and his two brothers were taken to several towns. On the sixth day someone in a small Texas town adopted one brother. Then a family selected Lee and his other brother. But soon Lee was sent to another home, the home of a farming family. The problem was, Lee had never been on a farm. The city boy didn't know not to open the doors to the hen house. When Lee did, the angry farmer sent him away. In a succession of sad events, Lee had lost his father, been aboard a train from New York to Texas, separated from his two brothers and kicked out of two homes. His little heart was about to break. He’s eight.

Finally, he was taken to the home of a tall man and a short, plump woman, as Lee described her. During their first supper together, Lee said nothing. He went to bed making plans to run away. The next morning, they seated him at a breakfast of biscuits and gravy. When he reached for one, well, I'll let Lee tell you what happened. “Mrs. Nailling stopped me. ‘Not until we've said grace,’ she explained. I watched as they bowed their heads. Mrs. Nailling began speaking softly to ‘our Father,’ thanking Him for the food and the beautiful day. I knew enough about God to know that the woman's ‘our Father’ was the same one who was in the ‘our Father who art in heaven’ prayer that visiting preachers had recited over us at the orphanage. But I couldn't understand why she was talking to Him as though He were sitting here with us waiting for His share of the biscuits. I began to squirm in my chair.”

“Then Mrs. Nailling thanked God ‘for the privilege of raising a son.’ I stared as she began to smile. She was calling me a privilege. And Mr. Nailling must have agreed with her because he was beginning to smile, too. For the first time since I'd boarded the train I began to relax. A strange, warm feeling began to fill my aloneness and I looked at the empty chair next to me. Maybe, in some mysterious way, ‘our Father’ was seated there, and was listening to her softly spoken words. ‘Help us make the right choices as we guide him, and help him make the right choices, too.’ ‘Dig in, son.’ The man's voice startled me. I hadn't even noticed the ‘amen.’ My mind had stopped at the ‘choices’ part.”

“As I heaped my plate, I thought about that. Hate and anger and running away had seemed to be my only choices, but maybe there were others. I ate in silence. After breakfast, as they walked me to the barbershop for a haircut, we stopped at each of the six houses on the way. Each time, the Nailling’s introduced me as ‘our new son.’ As we left the last house, I knew that at first light the next day I would not be running away. At least I could choose to give it a try. And there was something else. Although I didn't know where Papa was, or how I could write to him, I had the strong feeling that I had found not one but two new fathers, and I could talk to both of them. And that's the way it turned out.”

To live as God's child is to know, at this very instant, that you are loved by your Maker – not because you try to please him and succeed, or fail to please him and apologize, but because he wants to be your Father. Nothing more. All your efforts to win his affection are unnecessary; all your fears of losing his affection are needless. You can no more make him want you than you can convince him to abandon you. You’ve been adopted and have a place at God’s table.

Grace,

Randy