adoption, finances and the faithfulness of God

Wheedling down which books to take to China was a difficult task. I like to read and often reference a variety of books while praying or just while thinking about something in particular. I knew that Matthew Henry's complete commentary of the Bible was out of the running, as were a number of other hardcover books that I had been reading. I finally narrowed things down to just a couple of paperback books, my journal and a Bible.

During a prayer time a few days after arriving home, therefore, I decided to read the entry for November 2nd (Grace's Gotcha Day!) in God Calling (which is a book that did not make the packing cut). This was what it said:

"Give, give, give. Keep ever an empty vessel for Me to fill. In future use all for Me, and give all you cannot use. How poor die those who leave wealth! Wealth is to use, to spend, for Me. Use as you go. Delight to use."

Now, this may not sound like the sort of prophetic message that would give most people goose bumps in regards to their daughter's adoption, but for me it was extremely significant.

Three years ago, on David and my 10th anniversary, we spent the weekend together while his parents watched the kids. When we dropped the children off at his parent's house, David noticed a book that his father had been given by a friend. It was called, "A Brief Account of the Life and Labors of George Muller" and "George Muller on Money and Possessions". David took the book and was highly interested in reading it. I, on the other hand, could think of nothing that interested me less than reading about finances on our anniversary weekend.

But, the next morning, as David was reading and praying, he stopped and read a passage from the section of the book on money and possessions. It was incredible. We ended up spending much of the weekend reading and discussing this book. Any of you who are familiar with George Muller will know that he started many orphanages in England during the 1800's. He cared for homeless children in a way that was extraordinary for the time.

I already knew this, but what I didn't really understand before was that George Muller had a philosophy of money which made him fully dependent on God as his supply. And when I say fully dependent that is exactly what I mean. It wasn't unusual for George Muller to have nothing for the orphans to eat for breakfast, then to pray and have a milk truck break down in front of the orphanage, or a baker deliver 20 loaves of bread for free. George Muller depended on God for every single thing that he needed, and God never let him down.

The amazing thing is that George Muller loved living in this way and also believed that this was normal Christianity. David and I were blown away. We read, studied and prayed, and came to the conclusion that we believed that George Muller was correct in his assessment of normal Christianity. But if this was normal Christianity, we certainly weren't living it! We were living the normal American financial life, except that we didn't have any substantial debt and we already believed in living a simple lifestyle (both of which made us feel as if we were very godly indeed!!).

So, what were we to do? Well, first of all, we had to do an about-face in our understanding of money, savings, stewardship, etc. To be honest, we are still in this process and are just beginning to understand what God wants for us in this area. We are beginners when it comes to trusting God completely for our finances (or any other area). But, we are committed to the path, because we know that God truly is worthy of our complete and utter trust.

Grace's adoption has convinced us even more of the truth of this, because we did not have one single penny to finance her adoption just a year and a half ago. But, down to the very amount that we needed, God has been faithful to supply for her (and our) needs.

A large chunk of the money came through two very significant grants and the rest of it came through the interest on some money that was given to us. Last week, David was figuring out the exact expense and amount that we had used for Grace's adoption and realized that these three things covered exactly what we needed for her adoption. This is no coincidence!! At one point (very early on in our thinking of adopting again) I wrote out a list of ideas of ways to raise money. Now, I do not think that this is a bad way of financing an adoption at all, but I was praying while writing out the ideas and I realized that with the work that it would involve it was impossible for me to do this and still remain faithful to other needs of our family/church. God would simply have to give us the money if we were to adopt again. And guess what?! He did!! We basically did nothing. He did it all.

I'll close this post with a beautiful quote from George Muller:

"Observe here particularly that we, the children of God, should be different from the nations of the earth, from those who have no Father in heaven, and who therefore make it their great business, their first anxious concern, what they shall eat, and what they shall drink, and wherewithal they shall be clothed. We, the children of God, should, as in every other respect, so in this particular also, be different from the world, and prove to the world that we believe that we have a Father in heaven who knoweth that we have need of all these things. The fact that our Almighty Father, who is full of infinite love to us His children, and who proved to us His love in the gift of His only-begotten Son, and His almighty power in raising Him from the dead, knows that we have need of these things, should remove all anxiety from our minds."