Foster Children

by Joshua Patterson, A.K.A. The Kronikler

When I studied at university school, it wasn’t uncommon to witness my colleagues openly mock religion or speak ill of people who believe in God. I specifically remember a sculpture class in which a classmate of mine devoted her entire artistic series to renouncing her Christian upbringing. The opinions she shared during critiques resonated with a solid number of other ex-Christians and former victims of “church hurt”, including my professor. I remember my sculpture professor commenting on the different and sometimes changing depictions of God that are made in your mind according to how he is described to you. Someone may describe God to you as a man; Another person may describe God to you as a Man in the Sky, watching from above; Still another person describes God as a BIG man in the sky who watches from above, complete with a beard and amazing power.

Recently, I was reflecting upon these words, and couldn’t help but think about the many people who’ve grown up without the privilege and blessing of having two parents in their household. I would imagine that some of them might have been left with little more than a photograph or collection of photographs to remember their parents by. Descriptions of your mother, your father, or both parents by a legal guardian only brings so much comfort. You can be told thousands of things about their personality, their passions, their likes and dislikes, and what they would have wanted for you, but none of these descriptions can fill the void left by their absence. There’s not a single impression made by these memoirs that serves as an adequate substitute for an actual experience with a mother or a father. The pain echoing from this void is severe enough to motivate one to despise the very idea of a parent, let alone the parent him/herself.

I find this example to be a suitable illustration for many former and non-Christians. “You can tell me all of these wonderful things about God. You can talk to me about His plans for my life, and the beauty of his intents and purposes, even in a world of real sorrow and struggle. But the fact of the matter is, your God isn’t someone I actually know. He’s not real to me. You’re challenging me to model myself after an example I rarely see outside of black-and-white print, and the best models I’ve found — ironically enough — come from outside the Church. If you can do that well without a Holy Book, then what relevance does this Jesus have in my life? I mean, I’ve heard that He died for my Past (and yeah, I’m definitely thankful for that), but can He live for my Present? What wisdom does He have, aside from loving your neighbor and turning the other cheek, that’s actually applicable to the situations I face in real, modern life? The private hypocrisy that soils my public righteousness; My cousin’s battle with gender dysphoria, and her realization that dishonesty solves nothing; Arguments in my family over social concerns that split the dinner table the way partisan clashes split the debate table. What does He have to say about that?

You know, even as followers of Christ, we aren’t too different from our unsaved neighbors. Since A.D. 33, we’ve lived just on the other side of Grace, at the end of Surrender Avenue. There was a time when we, just like strangers of Christ, were “foster children” in spirit. As Ephesians 1:5 states, “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.” This idea is elaborated upon in Galatians 4: “God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, ‘Abba, Father’. Now you are no longer a slave, but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir” (vv. 5-7). Christ basically traded places with us, exchanging His Royalty for our iniquity so that we — in Jesus’s Name — can enjoy full benefits as Nobles of God’s Family.

There’s a frequently overlooked piece of this illustration that I’d like to address. It bears the form of a “legal guardian” that Christians call “religion”. We fell into the arms of this guardian one tragic day, back when our own rebellion first led us astray from our Father. Since that time, this Guardian has watched over us to ensure that we enjoyed life within limits. It prescribed for us a set of rules to follow while we lived in its house, and we did our best to obey them accordingly. Inevitably, there were times when we fell out of line, whether with our Guardian or with our neighbor, and it was during these times that we’d have to complete difficult, rigorous chores to retain our right to stay in the household.

Religion, this “legal guardian”, observed us as much as we observed it, for it could tell — and often tells — that there still exists a longing in our hearts for our real Parent. (This is why we join with our fellow orphans and sing about the father we want to know better.) Like any good caretaker, Religion is most effective when it points us to where we need to go when we’ve gone wrong. If we are obedient, this destination leads to a true “Foster Parent”, someone who made Himself to look like us so that we could be a part of His family. When we have reached this destination, Religion can only look over our shoulder, as we have turned our backs on our roots to become the branch of a new Tree, embracing the limitless heritage of a renewed purpose. Galatians Chapter 3 puts it this way: “…The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. And now that the way of faith as come, we no longer need the law as our guardian” (vv. 24-25).

But what is this “renewed purpose”? What exactly is this reassignment? The word “foster”, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, has a couple of different definitions. The first and most familiar definition is “to give parental care to: NURTURE.” The second definition of foster is “to promote the growth or development of: ENCOURAGE.” It’s the second definition that I would like to focus on.

You see, we’re still “foster children”; That’s a status that hasn’t changed. But God has done the marvelous and unique work of turning the label that brought us great shame into a medal that inspires our greatest pride — not in our own works, but in what He has done for us (Eph. 2:8-9). We no longer shrivel in the poverty of our tradition or our rebellion, but rather blossom in the royalty of the dominion we have in Christ. With this dominion, we foster the kingdom of heaven as the Hands and Feet of a Savior who never lost touch with mankind. We are His “Encouragers”, His propaganda to a lost and injured world that is in need of the redemption His Good News delivers.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jesus can certainly live for our present. In the words of Ravi Zacharias, “He is Risen Indeed.” He is Risen when we shamelessly represent Him before a culture that has turned its back upon Him. He is Risen when we sacrifice our personal comfort for a decision with eternal consequences. He is Risen when we serve to provide the most support to the least of society. He is Risen when we donate our talents as his lungs to communities that have forgotten how to breathe.

Jesus said in John 12:32 that “…if I be lifted up from the earth, [I] will draw all men unto me.” How will you “lift Him up” today?

Copyright © 2020 by Joshua Patterson, A.K.A. The Kronikler. All Rights Reserved.