Parenting in Grace: Who Is This Child?

Who is this child?
I heard once that personhood can be defined in three parts: (1) Identity, (2)Acceptance, (3) Approval. This intrigued me, as I have become increasingly convinced that our precious adopted children's wholeness and healing directly correlates with their understanding and belief in who they are. Do you remember what God the Father said about Jesus when He was baptized? "This is (1) My Son, (2) My Beloved, (3) In Whom I Delight!"(Matthew 3:17) Jesus received this public affirmation from His Father--hisidentity as a son of his Father, his acceptance as one who is loved, and theapproving delight of his Father. When we ask the question, "Who is this child?" as parents, we have the opportunity to partner with the Holy Spirit to see God's eternal purposes manifested in his or her life, going way past the surface issues of behavior into the depth of their identity in Christ.


What is God Seeing? What is God Saying?
My favorite example of this is found in the story of Gideon (Judges 6)-- I love this story! There is Gideon threshing wheat in secret, hiding in a wine press so that the Midianite enemy can't steal it from him. And then the Angel of the Lord shows up and says, "The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor." Notice, Gideon is not even wearing armor, he has no sword, he is hiding in justified fear--there is nothing about him that would indicate that he is indeed a "might man of valor." What in the world was God thinking?! More importantly, what was God seeing?


Facts or Truth?
Do you see the huge gap between the Word of the Lord and the facts at hand?!  There is a disturbing and direct opposition between God's words and what can be seen at the present moment. In this situation it is key to recognize the difference between facts and truth. Facts are simply an accurate description of a circumstance. Facts change, but Truth--God's Word-- remains.


How often do we look at our children and see only a repeated negative behavior or character trait. We must look to who they are in the Spirit. Notice, God did not say, "You will be a mighty man of valor once I finish my work in you." I don't know about you, but to me it almost feels like God made a mistake here. But rather, I think what is going on is that God saw something in Gideon in the Spirit, something that had not yet manifested but was, nevertheless, TRUE. Also, let's take note that God did not attack him with words like, "Gideon, you are a gutless wimp. Shape up here." As with Jesus, God spoke out loud into Gideon his identity in the very midst of thefacts that spoke as loud as any words, "Fearful, not Mighty."....

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