Do We Really Care for Orphans?

It seems that orphans have received a lot of attention in the past five years or so. The social-justice-minded millennial generation has raised awareness of the multitude of children who have lost one or both parents. In Zambia alone, there are 1.2 million orphans… 19% of all children under the age of 18. That is so unfathomable to us as Americans. We will buy necklaces, handbags, coffee, or just about anything else to support orphans. Maybe even take a mission trip to an orphanage. Why? We are burdened for them. We want to do something to help; we are desperate to feel like we are part of the solution. The problem has been overlooked for too long. 

And without a doubt, good things have come from this movement. An increase in Christians adopting children and churches supporting them to do so. Beginning to look outside our comfort zones and asking how we can be the body of Christ to those who are helpless. Feeling that burden, compassion, and love for these precious ones who are so close to the heart of our Savior. Oh, our hearts break for them.

BUT.

Does your heart break for spiritual orphans? Those who, although they may have physical parents, have no one committed to nurturing them spiritually? They may not be as noticeable as a barefoot child, but I promise you know at least one. 

It's the thirteen year old girl who gives her life to Christ and then slips through the cracks when her unbelieving parents stop bringing her to church.

It's the young man who accepts Jesus as his Savior, but no one ever teaches him how to study the Bible or talk to his heavenly Father or what it means to live according to the Spirit.

It's the child who gets dropped off at Sunday school, AWANAS, and church choir so his parents can have a break, and no one at home ever asks him about what he is learning. 

It's the exchange student, far from family and familiarity, who becomes a first-generation believer and has no idea what to do next. 

It's the newlywed who desires to have a godly marriage but doesn't have anyone in her life she can look to as an example. 

They are the people who sit in your pews every Sunday for a sermon but are still spiritually babies. They have no prayer warrior interceding for them, no mentor holding them accountable, no communion with the body of believers, no one they regard as a spiritual brother or sister or father or mother in their time of need.

Oh, may our hearts long to be Christ with flesh to these children of God just as much as to orphans in Africa!

Paul called Timothy his son in the faith. Why? He wasn't an orphan; he had both parents (Acts 16:1). Yet his father was not a believer in Christ. Who then would teach Timothy to flee sin, pursue godliness, and fight the good fight of the faith? (1 Tim. 6:11-12) 

Paul took that responsibility upon himself (1 Timothy 1:2).

We, the church, have neglected discipleship. The church-- not as an institution-- but you, and I, and all who call themselves by Christ's name. 

Discipleship. That life-on-life responsibility for another. I will teach you, I will pray for you; come into my home and around my dinner table. I will laugh with you, and I will cry with you. It is a messy way of life, because we are all broken people. And it is a much longer commitment than a week-long mission trip. But Christ modeled it and Christ commanded it (Matt. 28:19). 

I don't say these things because I do them well, but because I don't do them enough. Christ opened my eyes and drew me in with a burden for orphans, but the deeper I looked into the heart of my Savior, the more I realized that that burden only scratched the surface of his bottomless, immeasurable love for all his children.

So please, keep sending money to support the orphan whose picture is on your refrigerator. Keep praying about adoption if the Lord has placed it on your heart. Don't cancel your overseas mission trip. But ask the Father who it is in your life that you can disciple-- call your spiritual child. You don't have to cross an ocean; you can be Jesus with skin on to someone today.