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God’s Faithful Sovereignty When Things Don’t go as Planned

HANNAH HAGARTY | GUEST My husband and I have two failed adoptions, chronic illness, and an unexpected mission field exodus to our names. Things not going as planned? I may be an unwilling expert on the subject. But it turns out, being an expert on disappointment can mean possessing a deep appreciation for the goodness of God’s sovereignty.  We readily said yes when asked to adopt the two little sisters in our home. As foster parents for nearly half of our married lives, Mali had come to us at eighteen months old. When her sister Ziva was born, we picked her up from the hospital. Birthdays and holidays flew by with our biological children and the little girls until they had been with us nearly two years. And then, with one phone call, we were told the case plan had changed from adoption to reunification. The girls were to be handed over to a biological relative investigated for crimes against a child. It didn’t matter which way anyone turned that fact about - sense was found nowhere in it. Years later, my husband and I and seven of our children were living in West Asia, sent out by the church to do mission work, never intending to live in the States again. For thirteen months, we worked our assigned jobs, learned the culture, and did the difficult work of progressing in the local language. Our kids flourished. And then, with another phone call, devastating news from the States immediately put me on the thirty-one hour flight back....

God’s Faithful Sovereignty When Things Don’t go as Planned2026-02-27T20:54:52+00:00

Rejoicing in Our Adoption

JULIANNE ATKINSON |GUEST The summer before sixth grade, I came to faith in Christ at a sports camp. After I returned home, I gushed about God. It flowed out of my mouth how much I loved Him–His grace, love, and mercy in giving us His Son. One evening, I sat in the passenger seat of our family car, talking about these things I had learned of God to my mom, anticipating the worship and fun I would have when I arrived to youth group that night. I was taken aback by my mother’s response to my exuberance: “I wish I could believe that.”  There are moments in life when you realize truths that change the way you think about your life. For me, this moment in the car was pivotal in teaching me that although my family is dear to me, though they are kind, moral, and emotionally healthy compared to most, celebrating Christmas didn’t make them Christians. Because my mother didn’t share my faith, she didn’t understand the spiritual joy I felt. Yet, even then, I knew my life had changed forever by knowing Christ and I’d never go back. Since then, I’ve reckoned with the fact that my spiritual parents have come from outside my birth family. Adoption into God’s Family When we think of the word “adoption” today, we often think of the heart that is moved with compassion to bring an orphan child into the family and raise the child as their own. In the New Testament, when the authors, and particularly the Apostle Paul, talk about adoption, they are describing a legal procedure. In Paul’s day, you could even adopt someone older than you. The point was that they were once in one family by nature, and following their adoption, they were then the legal representative and heir to the inheritance of a completely different family. When he writes in Romans 8:15, “You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” Paul distinguishes believers as heirs rather than servants. An heir wouldn’t lose their inheritance with old age. An heir would still be welcomed if they had an accident and grew physically unable to perform their daily household duties. In our status of being adopted as an heir of God, standing before Him as His children, in union with Christ, our relationship to our Triune God changes....

Rejoicing in Our Adoption2025-10-17T18:47:52+00:00

Four Reasons to Study Theology

JULIANNE ATKINSON |GUEST When I lived in Alaska, my friends and I went on several 30-mile treks. There was one trek where we hiked the first ten miles and went to sleep that night to expansive mountain views as far as the eye could see. We woke up the next morning after a cold night on a hard floor to a completely opaque cloud cover. We couldn’t see three feet in front of us. We wandered the Alaskan wilderness searching for trail cairns to take us to the next point on the bald faces of the mountainside. The rain wasn’t as much falling, as we were walking IN it. We decided to finish the hike a day early and with our soaked-through waterproof boots we traversed 20 miles through a wet cloud. We saw the boggy ground. We saw the great dark shapes slowly take form on the horizon as we went up and down, up and down, up and down. We bonded over trying to make sense of where we were on the elevation map. We felt joy in the accomplishment and relief when we made it to our cars and subsequently, pizza on the other side. We finished the journey, but we missed what we came to see. On the last weekend of the summer, we took on the Kesugi Ridge trail in Denali State Park. Denali, the famed highest peak in North America, is seen only 30% of the time. You never know how clear your weather will be, but there’s always the hope it will be clear enough to see. That weekend we hiked the first ten miles up Kesugi Ridge and set up camp opposing the crystal-clear Alaskan sunset over the snowy, awe-inspiring mountain towering over the entire Alaska Range in the distance. We hydrated our hot meals and couldn’t believe the glory of God revealed before our eyes. We could see what God had made and it turned our eyes and hearts to Him. In a similar way, when we don’t study theology, we might complete the journey we set out on. We might even love what we see of God through the misty ups and downs of life. But what we see on the clouded journey is nowhere near the satisfaction we COULD experience with the rich and beautiful full picture of who He is. So, what is it that we’re missing out on if we don’t pursue the study of theology?...

Four Reasons to Study Theology2024-05-09T18:57:11+00:00

How Theology Leads to Doxology

BARBARANNE KELLY|CONTRIBUTOR One of the singular marvels of Scripture is Job’s response when he learned that he had lost everything. After a series of messengers bring him a string of devastating messages, piling tragedy upon tragedy in mind-numbing and soul-rending repetition, “Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and. . .” what? What does he do? Rend the heavens with his wails of grief? Fall into a state of catatonic shock? Scream until he has neither breath nor voice? He worships. From Theology to Doxology And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). Job may very well have wailed and screamed in shock. To grieve deeply is no sin, as the rest of his story  bears out. But how, in that moment of devastation, can he worship? Job can worship the LORD because he knows something about him, and what he knows at that horrible moment is enough. Job knew that everything he possessed was an undeserved gift from the hands of a gracious God. When God determined the time had come to take the gifts away, Job “fell on the ground and. . . blessed the name of the LORD” (1:20–21). Later, when his friends accused him of hidden sin, Job knew with the certainty of a conscience washed in faith that his sin had been forgiven. He may have been perplexed at the will of the LORD to permit these horrors in his life, and he may have staggered under his repeated questions of “Why?” but he held fast his confession of faith; he knew that his Redeemer lived, and at the last he will stand upon the earth (19:25). Job’s theology led to doxology; what he believed about God fueled his worship. As believers, like Job, we naturally want to know why our gracious heavenly Father sends trials our way. But even when lacking specific answers, we can still rest on what we know to be true. Hence, it is important to learn what we can about our God who has revealed himself in the words of Scripture and in the person of Christ. I don’t know how Job knew what he knew about God, since he lived before the writing of the Pentateuch, but from the time of Moses God has graciously given us his holy, inspired, and inerrant Word as a guide not only to life and holiness, but to knowing him...

How Theology Leads to Doxology2023-03-24T17:22:45+00:00

Consider Your Sonship

SUE HARRIS|CONTRIBUTOR A friend of mine married a guy named Jerome who was raised in Switzerland but had lived a few years in Thailand as a missionary. It was always fascinating to talk with him about church, missions, and his cross-cultural experiences. Often, we don’t realize that our normal isn’t normal until someone from the outside is able to gently speak into what we say and do. One day, Jerome and I sat down for a chat after church. I asked him, “Jerome, now that you live in the US, what stands out to you as different in our churches compared to yours in Switzerland or even in Thailand?” He reclined in his chair and patiently responded. I could tell that he was working to be both frank and kind. He was slow to speak when I reminded him that I asked him because I wanted an honest answer. “Well, I have noticed something. It seems that many churches in America I’ve attended sing and preach significantly about our sin, which is appropriate and true: we are sinners and totally depraved, in desperate need of a Savior. But we’re also sons of God, adopted by the Father and there’s great power in that.” Jerome stated something so simple and, I think, so fascinating: For those of us who are in Christ…we are sons of God. There’s great power in that declaration. I spend a lot more time contemplating my depravity than I do my sonship. I spend a lot more time contemplating my sanctification than my sonship. I spend a lot more time contemplating that I am the bride of Christ than my sonship. All of these truths deserve my contemplation, but it seems more difficult for me to consider my sonship...

Consider Your Sonship2023-03-24T18:16:57+00:00

The Freedom of Union With Christ

My grandparents remember exactly what they were doing when they received news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. My parents have similarly sharp memories concerning the assassination of JFK. I still clearly remember where I was and what I was doing when I saw the footage of the Twin Towers collapsing. Our complex and beautiful brains have a way of remembering both the shocking and the deeply significant moments that shape our lives. Likewise, I will never forget the day that the theological concept of union with Christ trickled that long eighteen inches from my head to my heart. I remember the exact table at the coffee shop at which I was sitting. I remember the old, tattered book that God used to cement the concept in my soul. I remember that moment because it colored the way I experienced every moment after it! Having come to Christ from an unchurched background, I threw myself headfirst into the Christian life. My husband and I had been in full-time vocational ministry for many years and were in the early years of parenting two under two. On the surface, things were going well, but my soul hit a wall. I was tired and my faith, once vibrant, felt anemic. I was doing all the same things, but my heart felt simultaneously weary and restless. What was I missing? Sitting at a local coffee shop, I prayed that the Lord would restore unto me the joy of my salvation and grant me a willing heart to sustain me (Psalm 51:12). Then God used a little-known book, Bone of His Bone by F.J. Huegel, to open my eyes to the freedom and wonder of union with Christ. What Union with Christ Is Paul describes the mysterious wonder that is union with Christ when writing to the church at Colossae using the phrase, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). In his letter to the Galatian Church, he speaks further on this incredible reality....

The Freedom of Union With Christ2022-05-04T23:35:39+00:00
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