Book Exerpt

This is an excerpt from a cool new book by Russell Moore, Adopted For Life. Russell is speaking at a Together for Adoption conference in Franklin, October 2-3. Enjoy!

Some Christians have firm convictions against any kind of debt. Because of the Bible tells us “the borrower is the slave of the lender” (Prov 22:7), these Christians believe nothing should be purchased that can’t be paid for in cash. In an era when so many people—including Christians—are awash in indebtedness to credit cards and car payments and so on, I respect those Christians who reject debt altogether. If you’re of this conviction, then don’t violate your conscience. Most Christians, though, don’t believe the Bible forbids all debt, just unwise and enslaving forms of it. Most Christians, for instance, will take out a mortgage for a home, and don’t believe they are unwise stewards for so doing. If you fit in this category, I do not think taking out a loan for the purpose of adoption is wrong—provided, as in all things, you’ve wisely considered how you’re going to pay off the money you’ve borrowed.

At a more fundamental level, it’s important to know that you don’t always have to know how God will equip you to adopt before you begin praying and planning toward adoption. I know it’s a Christian cliché to shrug and say, “God will provide” in the face of financial uncertainty—but the reason it’s a cliché is because God does indeed provide. Now, to be sure, God doesn’t promise to bless us with material prosperity, and he doesn’t indulge us with money to cover our foolish consumerist binges. But God repeatedly provides the means for willing men and
women to become parents, including those he’s called to adopt. Sometimes, at the first, it seems economically impossible.

When Maria and I started the adoption process, we had no money. I was a doctoral student, working as a part-time research assistant, and my wife was a very low-paid office secretary. In our living room was a threadbare couch we bought for about thirty dollars. After we purchased it, we had to spend another fifteen dollars to get the marijuana smoke smell out of it from the previous owners’ use. My car was a rusted little Subaru with an overheating radiator that could only get me about a mile and a half down the road without needing a gallon of water poured into it. We lived off our meager salaries, and the money I’d earn preaching in little country churches on the weekend. Later in the process, I was appointed to a seminary faculty, but, even so, the financial weight of the adoption was overwhelming to think about. I don’t like worrying about how I’m going to pay for things, and I can’t stand the idea of being indebted to anyone. And yet, God was, it seemed, leading us to do
something that would cost possibly more than the two of us combined made in a year.

One day, I looked up from my office desk to see a young man peering in the window of my door. I recognized him. He was a youth minister from a church in another state. I welcomed him in, thinking he wanted counsel about some pastoral situation in his church or some doctrinal point in the Bible he couldn’t understand. Instead, after a few minutes of idle conversation, he looked at me and said, “My wife and I were left some money from a relative who passed away. It’s about $10,000 and we were going to use it one day to go toward a down-payment on a house.” I nodded, trying to anticipate what the ethical dilemma would be, for which he was seeking my “wisdom.” He said, “My wife and I have been blessed with children, and I know you are trying to adopt. We want you to have this money, and use it toward the adoption of your children.”

I wasn’t expecting that, and I quickly dismissed it. “Oh no,” I said. “ I appreciate that greatly. But I want you and your wife to use that money for your house, or for your kids’ college education.” I assured him of my appreciation, and politely changed the subject to something else, trying to avoid the awkwardness of the moment.

“Are you telling me you already have all the money on hand that you need for the adoption?” he asked. “It’s already paid for?” I said, “Well, no, but…” This young minister interrupted me. “Well, then, I’m sorry to be disrespectful, but this isn’t really about you,” he said. “I mean, we aren’t in a place where we can adopt right now but we want to be a part of adoption. We think God is calling us to this. And it seems to me as though maybe you’re too, I don’t know, prideful or something, to receive this.” I blinked. He looked up and said, “Maybe you just need to repent of your pride and self-confidence and just let somebody bless you.”

He was, at that moment, the prophet pointing his finger—“Thou art the man”—exposing the slimy recesses of my heart, right there under the fluorescent ceiling lamps of my office. I had nothing to say. It was true that I was embarrassed at the thought of taking money from someone. I wasn’t anybody’s welfare recipient. I’d paid for every car I’d ever owned with cash. I’d worked my own way through all my schooling. I paid off every credit card bill I’d ever had in full the month it was due. I didn’t like the idea of this young man’s family knowing he was giving the money—money they’d like him to have for his family—to me. I didn’t like having the roles reversed on me suddenly—and my sitting there as a supplicant to be helped rather than a sage to be consulted. It was humiliating.

This young man looked at my tear-streamed face and said, “Well, I’ll mail the check tomorrow.” He continued, “I just want two conditions met. We’d like a picture of the boys every once in a while as they’re growing up. I also want to make sure no one ever knows who I am. You can tell people that someone helped you—if you think it’ll help people to do the same. But I don’t want anyone ever to know it was I who did it. I want God to get all the glory here. I don’t want any.”