FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
“So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table, like one of the king’s sons…So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate always at the king’s table. Now he was lame in both his feet.”
2 SAMUEL 9:11, 13 ESV
GOD IS KIND: WHEN HE ADOPTS US
Author Keith Miller tells of a 40-year-old woman who was part of a group he led. Here is her story: “When I was a tiny little girl, my parents died and I was put in an orphanage. I was not pretty at all and no one seemed to want me. But I longed to be adopted and loved by a family as far back as I can remember. I thought about it day and night, but everything I did seemed to go wrong. I must have tried too hard to please the people who came to look me over but what I did was to drive them away.
But then one day the head of the orphanage told me that a family was coming to take me home with them. I was so excited that I jumped up and down and cried like a little baby. The matron reminded me that I was on trial and this might not be a permanent arrangement, but I just knew that somehow it would work out.
So I went with this family and started to school. I was the happiest little girl you can imagine, and life began to open up for me just a little. But then one day a few months later, I skipped home from school and ran into the front door of the big old house we lived in. No one was at home, but in the middle of the front hall was my battered suitcase with my little coat thrown across it. As I stood there it suddenly dawned on me what it meant—I didn’t belong there anymore.
Miller reports that when the woman stopped speaking there was hardly a dry eye in the group. But then she cleared her throat and said almost matter-of-factly, “This happened to me seven times before I was 13 years old. But wait, don’t feel too badly. It was experiences like these that ultimately brought me to God—and there I found what I had always longed for—a place, a sense of belonging, a forever family.”
Four times in this chapter we are told of Mephibosheth eating bread at the royal table. And the story ends with him always eating at the King’s table. He found His forever family. Because God delights in kindness, we are adopted into His forever family and nothing can ever change that. Have you accepted God’s invitation to be adopted into His family? Who do you know who needs a home in God’s forever family? Pray that God would open their heart to accept His invitation.
“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God!”
1 John 3:1
