“Homecoming is a difficult process.” This is my advice to any parent considering adoption. That day when you load the car seat and bring your child home is not their true homecoming day. My husband and I have adopted three times—twice we’ve welcomed slightly older little ones into our home. Our first was nine months old and our second two and a half years. The day we brough each of those boys’ home was not the happiest day of their lives (although we wanted it to be): it was a day of separation from what they knew, a day of strangeness, and a day when an old identity began dying. While we knew that they were trading in warped coping mechanisms and dysfunctional behavior for a family, true love, acceptance, and a secure future, it was clear that they had not had that realization. For around the first six months, each time, I watched my sons grieved by freedom lost, by structure and discipline gained, and by the frustrations of two involved parents, something they did know they needed. Each homecoming was a battle that lasted months and, in each case, there was a moment when it began to dawn on us and on them: they had finally made it home.

There is no shortage of inspirational quotes from Romans 8, especially verses 12–17. The fact that we received the spirit of adoption and that we can indeed cry out, “Abba, Father” is one of the most beautiful realities of the Christian faith. However, we seldom preach the cost: Paul reminds us of the importance of submitting to God’s law, pleasing our Father (vv. 7–8), putting to death the deeds of the body (v. 13), and suffering with Christ as our co-heir (v. 17). Our sonship comes through us being Spirit-led, obedient children, willing to put to death our former ways. In the Greco-Roman world, adoption was not about the child, nor was it about remedying abandonment. Rather, adoption was about the father. It was a sensible way for prominent men without sons to ensure that they had an heir. Adoptees were hand-picked, often from what we would consider stable homes, and trained and equipped to become the son the adopter would approve of. This necessitated a change in identity: a new name, new destiny, and new rules and discipline. To become who the father wants you to be, you had to put to death your former identity and act as a legitimate son within your new home.

Now, while Christian adoption is radically different from this Greco-Roman practice in the sense that our Father did not choose the most promising candidates (thank God for that), I fear that we have romanticized the passages on adoption and that we have made sonship merely about acceptance.  It is the putting to death of our former identity and actions that is often underplayed. There is a legitimacy that comes with our Father’s discipline (Hebrews 12:7–11) and while we will never be sinless while we walk this earth (1 John 1:8–10), crying out Abba Father also means acknowledging his authority to change us, however painful that might be. Israel was not simply taken out of Egypt into Canaan: they were gathered to a God who made a covenant with them and constrained them within their new-found freedom to make a holy people of them. And, like my sons, they longed back to the luxuries they had while in bondage (e.g., Ex 14:11–12; 16:3; 17:3; Num 11:4–6; 14:1–4; 20:5; 21:5). When we are adopted as God’s sons, there is a cost. The cost pales in comparison to the immense love of the Father and the eternal inheritance that comes with becoming his children. Still, we feel this tension as our former whims and ways are put to death and we learn what it is our Father desires from us. In Luke 3, we see John the Baptist preaching the cost of discipleship to various groups: he challenges the crowds to be generous (3:11), the tax collectors to be honest (3:13), and the soldiers to be content and to refrain from extortion (3:14). Luke identifies these and other exhortations as John preaching the good news (εὐαγγελίζω) to the people (3:18).

Homecoming is indeed a (difficult) process. I have seen two sons trade in their former identities to become what their father and mother lovingly knew they could be. I have seen the pain, the rage, the disappointment, and the longing that arose as they gave up who they formerly were. However, I have also seen the restoration of brokenness, the rest that comes with love and unconditional acceptance, potential reached, and destiny born. Adoption is double-edged: it is both life and death; embrace and surrender.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:24–25).

Disclaimer: The views presented in this blog are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the views of SATS.