Our family has begun our adoption process, we have been through courses, read books, spent time in prayer, looking inside and out to make certain that this is God’s plan for us.

Through all this we have seen God’s heart and it is for children becoming united with solid loving families, within which they can grow and achieve God’s purposes in their lives, in an environment of love, support, security and grace.

So the question is, if this is such a massive desire of God and if it would only take approximately 7% of christians to ensure that every orphan has a family, if this is His heart, then why are there still orphans.

If we can extend this we can see that God’s heart is also for the poor, it is for marriages, it is for community. Why then do we have poverty, why is there such a great rate of divorce and why do we live lives that promote isolation and loneliness?

“A Father to the fatherless, defender of widows,this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families”

Psalm 68:5-6

So if we were to paint a picture of God’s family, not the church, but what we say best describes a family that shares His heart, what would that look like?

I read an article recently in Christianity today which spoke of amongst other things, whether it is better that a child remains an orphan, or remains in foster care than becoming adopted by a non-Christian based or even homosexual couple.

Now before your Southern Baptist, God-fearing, bible wielding, super theology based neck hairs start going crazy, just know I am not advocating homosexuality nor placing other religions on an equal footing as Christianity. What I am doing, is asking you, what I have been asking myself. When it comes to things of God’s heart, how can we take a position of truth, when we ourselves don’t practice the truth we say everyone should subscribe to.

A simple question needs an answer, if we say we believe what the Word of God says, do we believe it in word and thought, or in deed as well? If the Bible says love thy neighbour, who would you class as not being your neighbour? If the bible says give to the poor, which poor people would we say are not covered by this instruction and if God places the lonely in families, why aren’t more Christian families allowing children without families to find a home with them.

If we are not doing what God asks of us, how then can we be offended when others, who don’t perhaps believe in Him, do exactly that. How can we get bent out of shape and profess that it is against God’s will, when clearly many of our actions profess that we don’t follow His Will either. The Church is against homosexual marriages, surely then Christians should have given the example that a marriage between one man and a woman is a forever commitment, and surely if we are wanting homosexual couples not to adopt children, we should have adopted them all long ago.

So what does His family look like? I bet His family is one that includes rather than excludes, I bet His family is one that loves by impulse rather than conscious thought alone, I bet his family draws the lonely and orphaned into it, rather than give reasons why they wouldn’t fit.

I truly believe that the family is the vehicle by which God’s love through Christ is meant to be conveyed to the world, it is the answer to the world’s questions and the medicine to its sicknesses. But if our families start to look like those that the world already knows, then all we become is the same instrument that merely plays a different tune. We need to do more than play different tunes, we need to be different as well.

So, should homosexual families be allowed to adopt? My answer is that if the people who are supposed to adopt aren’t doing it, the need for those children to have a family doesn’t simply disappear.

What do you think?