I love the movie “Annie”. I love stories of rags to riches. I love the fact that a cute, yet unattractive (most because of her hair), freckled, young orphan is given an opportunity for a second life. Annie’s life, much like mine started off without hope. She was born into it. She didn’t have a choice. She was born as an orphan. She didn’t get to ask what she wanted for breakfast. She didn’t get to have a choice in her clothing. She couldn’t complain about her chores. She was forced to live a life that was not what she wanted, not what she was really born to do. Whether by accident, or by choice, this was the life that Annie began. Plagued by a mistake or accident, her life was made to be that of a orphan.
Going through life, it has always been hard for me to understand, what it really means to be an orphan spiritually. I’ve always had a hard time understanding some metaphors that God chooses to use in the Bible. One of them is that we are in essence...orphans. Yes, I am an Annie (I think that’s correct grammar). I am misfit. I know my life pretty well, and I would say, that yes I am a misfit. I am prone to make mistakes. Not just being clumsy, but big mistakes. I hurt people. I hurt myself. I screw up a lot of the time, and by a lot of the time...I mean a LOT of the time. I am sitting here right now thinking of all the people that are probably ticked off at me right now. I am not fit to really have any relationships with people. However, one day like Annie, God swooped down and rescued me. God, through Jesus, allowed me to learn and keep learning what a life as a true son is supposed to be. He began and continues teaching me things about myself that I never knew. When I mess up, he loves me. When I screw up, he loves me. He teaches me the definition of unconditional love. Love that doesn’t care where you came from, or how you got there. Love that doesn’t end. Even though it’s real, this really is a hard theology to understand and really feel.
Since I can remember (which might be about 3 or 4...i am a late learner at everything), I have never know what it is like to have a dad. When you grow up without a dad as guy, it does something special to you. By special, I don’t mean a “spectacular special”. I mean it does something to you, that guys with Dads’ don’t get to experience. You grow up with a sense of wanting to belong. Wanting to be part of a legacy, or something bigger than just you. When I was a kid, I remember going to my 2nd grade class. It was a Friday. This was a sunny day that I recall. Recess had just let out and I had whipped up on some kids in dodgeball. As soon as we came in from recess, our teacher had a laid a piece of red construction paper on our desk. She then said, “Class, it’s time for you to write a Father’s Day card to all of your daddy’s.” Maybe for the first time, and I am not sure if this was the first time, I remember realizing that there was a major difference between everyone else in the class and me. I didn’t have a father. So what was I going to write? I thought about making up something, so I didn’t look different. I started to peak at what other kids were writing. Things like “You’re the best dad ever!”, or “I am so glad you’re my dad”. These were some of the wonderful things that kids were saying. Instead, on the inside of my card, I remember writing, “I don’t have a dad.” I turned that in to my teacher. She never said anything to me after that concerning my dad. Maybe she didn’t know how to deal with a kid without a dad. I know they’re a lot kids now like me. However, at the time, I didn’t think so.
I walked away that day with one feeling in my mind. I was an orphan. I was missing out. I didn’t have dad to come to football and basketball games. I didn’t have a dad on Father’s day, and I didn’t have a dad that loved me. I won’t continue this sappy story any further. I want you to know what is the best part for me about not having a father. The great part about growing up without a father, is that I knew the feeling of what it felt like to not belong. The feelings of wanting someone as a male figure to love you and care for you.
Why do I tell you this? I tell you this because I won’t you to understand what being a spiritual orphan is. We were created for a better life than an orphan. Unfortunately, we are born as a orphan. We are enslaved under sin and all the failures and problems that sin brings into our life much like being an orphan. Our destiny is live and die as an orphan. However my Father is not like my father. My Father, My God, came down to where I was, and continues to do this everyday, and tells me that He loves me. He is watching me in all that I do. I can experience in a way that some can’t what it means to be an adoptive son, as Paul calls it. Romans 8:23 says: “Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”
God chooses to adopt us. Obviously, by doing this, we are not to live as orphans, but as adopted sons. To experience the full understanding and feelings of a son. Living like this is the hard part...
