This week in our Life Together Group we were each given the assignment to create something that would be uniquely us… who would have thought that this would be so hard for me.  So, at 10:10am as I sit and watch Angie create her work of art in the kitchen, I’m reminded of how much we really are creating all the time.  Creation doesn’t have to be a masterpiece of art.  It’s not just the birthing of an idea and some physical form to bring it all into exsistance.  Sometimes, creation is an idea, a practice, a philosophy that is embodied in how we live.  This is what I want to create.

This EASTER at Crosspoint, we’re talking about adoption – not that it’s a heavy topic for us or anything.  We’re talking about how as children of GOD, we’re all adopted.  But this adoption causes us to sign our own names on the line.  Not the names of our children, grandchildren, or that pesky kid that lives down the street you just wish would go away.  This is a DEEPLY personal act for which GOD pursues us.

Have you ever noticed that GOD changed people’s names all the time in the Bible?  Simon was called Peter meaning “rock or foundation.”  In one of GOD’s greatest moments of sarcasm, He changed Paul the Christian Killer’s name to Saul which means “asked for” or as I like to think “You asked for it.”   What if that were the case today?  What would your name be?

Modern adoption is much the same.  After the post placement visit from the social worker you’re taken to “happy day” in court as it’s called.  The judge reads some paper work, the case worker stands us and says we’re good, and they sign off on all of it.  A new birth certificate is drawn up, the old ones are sealed, and we change the little guy’s name to ours.

Quite literally GOD tells us, “Change your name to mine.”

This is the creation I want to be a part of.

But it doesn’t stop at us signing our names magically curing all of our problems.  We’re supposed to live, humbled and broken, trusting and moving forward. We’re to live in community working through our crap together, giving freely to each other, sharing this new hope that we have been given.  We weren’t meant to do life alone.  We’re to do life together.

I can’t think of a better way to live.

PJT//