Josiah Road

Reaching Back

posted by Jonathan Frank 19Nov

Last week at the “Campus Outreach” service at Tennessee Tech a student shared a moving story about a family he knew that recently chose to adopt internationally. The family had told the student about how hard it was going to the orphanage in China and seeing the poor conditions these infants were being raised in, but said that what was even harder, was having to leave the baby that they wanted to adopt there in those conditions after first seeing her, as they couldn’t take the baby home with them upon their first visit.

But finally, those deserving parents did get to take that baby home. To start a new life, and give the child the opportunity to grow up with more opportunities, a promising future, and parents that would love her dearly. But they relayed to the student speaking that night at the service that as they drove off from the orphanage, where the baby lived in squalor and had hardly ever been held until the prospective parents came, the infant reached back behind her and cried as if not wanting to leave behind the life she had lived there, wanting to take that with her. Maybe because she didn’t know that what these loving parents could offer her would be so much better. The student then paused and asked, “How often do you and I do the same thing?” Instantly I was convicted with the knowledge that I was guilty of this.

I’ve been adopted too. Jesus came and picked me up out of the filth I was living in, wiped my slate clean, and made me a new creation, but so often I find myself reaching back for things of this world and latching on to old ways—wanting those things more than what God could give me. If only I could realize that what God can offer me is so much better!

And just as the family that adopted the young girl would never just take her back to the orphanage she came from because that’s what her actions indicated she wanted as they left, I am so thankful that my God loves me enough, and is merciful enough to never let me go, no matter how far I may run.

My prayer for my life today is that I would recognize that nothing this world could ever offer me will compare to God’s perfect plan for my life, that I would store my treasures in heaven and not here on Earth, and that I would fix me eyes on Him, never reaching back.

God wants to make me a new creation. All I have to do is let him.