According to the Independent online, 98% of all Japanese adoptions are employers adopting the adult men on their staff, not children. It’s not that Japanese employers love their staff so much they want them to be part of their family. It’s because Japanese employers don’t want the second generation to run the family business into the ground. The solution: adopt a highly qualified employee with the intention that they will take over leadership of the company.
This actually mirrors a practice in ancient cultures, when a man without a son would identify a worthy servant and adopt him as his heir. Abram alludes to this in Genesis 15:2, “O Sovereign Lord, what good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son? Since I don’t have a son, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth.”
This is in contrast to American culture, where we tend to adopt children – the average age is seven. Like birth parents, adoptive parents make a commitment to love and care for a child even though they have no idea how much work lies ahead and no guarantees about how it will turn out. It’s an irrevocable promise to love daily, whether it’s hard or easy, whether you like it or not. In this way, parenthood is a beautiful picture of unconditional love.
It’s love that requires strength and endurance and grit because children are constantly testing boundaries. Each time they push against some guideline or rule, they’re asking, Do you really mean it? They want to know if your love is unconditional, relentless, un-loseable.
The answer must be ‘yes’ every time. Yes, I really mean you can’t have another cookie. Yes, I really mean you have to go to bed. Yes, I really mean you won’t be going to that party. All because I care about you and it matters to me how you turn out. Every time we reinforce both the boundary and the love, the child grows more secure, more certain of their status as beloved.
The Bible says we’re all adopted: “God sent [Jesus] to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children” (Galatians 4:5). Although the Word here refers to children, the reality is like those Japanese employers adopting adult heirs. God doesn’t adopt us in ignorance, but with full knowledge that we are rebels and lawbreakers. That we’re prodigals who will squander the inheritance we were only given because of His kindness in the first place. And He does it anyway.
Why? Because His love really is unconditional, relentless, un-loseable. We cannot do anything that will ever make Him love us less. And every time we push against the boundaries that He has set, His answer is always Yes, I really mean it.
“You should behave instead like God’s very own children, adopted into his family – calling him, ‘Father, dear Father.’ For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we will share his treasures – for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too.” Romans 8:15-17