Kyle Mullen was a football star at his New Jersey high school and for Yale (where he was a second-team All-Ivy League selection) and Monmouth University. He was also an honor society student described by a former coach as a “great athlete but a better person.” The coach added that Mullen was “probably one of the best kids I ever had. Great, great kid on the field but even better off the field.”

Mullen, age twenty-four, died last Friday during Navy SEAL “Hell Week” training. The commander of Naval Special Warfare Command said, “We are extending every form of support we can to the Mullen family.”

That same day, five-year-old Rayan Oram died after being extricated from a Moroccan well. He fell one hundred feet into the well the previous Tuesday; the rescue attempt captured global attention. Moroccan King Mohammed VI called his parents after he died; French President Emmanuel Macron added on a Facebook post, “Tonight, I want to tell the family of little Rayan and the Moroccan people that we share their pain.”

Leaders are right to extend every possible support to these families. Society’s attention will soon shift from these two tragedies, but their parents and families will be marked by them forever. This is how it is with families and how it should be.

As Queen Elizabeth II noted in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, “Grief is the price we pay for love.”

A story I will not forget

Yesterday, we began a week-long focus on the transformational implications of the biblical declaration that Christians are the “children of God.” I wrote that “this changes everything. Knowing that we are now and forever the beloved children of the God of the universe gives us status and significance the world can neither bestow on us nor take from us. It fills the deep hunger of our souls for meaning and worth.”

Here’s the story behind this metaphor’s recent impact on my life.

Last week, Dr. Mark Turman and I were honored to speak to a group of ministers in the Houston area about my new book, The Coming Tsunami, and the larger topic of cultural apologetics. At one point, several of the men described ways they are engaging their culture with redemptive truth. One of them told a story I will not forget.

I would guess that this man is in his fifties or sixties. He is a minister and a professional building inspector who shares Christ wherever he can with whomever he can. He told us that his starting point is usually to tell people that he was adopted by his parents.

He makes this point: “They knew nothing about me when they chose me. Unlike biological children who inherited their genetics from their parents, my parents did not know my parents or anything about my story. They chose me as I was, where I was.” He notes that such unconditional love obviously changed his life, then explains how God’s unconditional love has been even more transformative for him.

He had tears in his eyes when he finished his story. I had tears in mine as I heard it.

Why being adopted by God is so empowering

Upon reflection, I realized that there is another way to tell his story. Unlike his adoptive parents, his heavenly Father knew everything about him. He knew everything about his parents, his genetics, and his background. He knew everything about what he had done before coming to Christ and who he was when he became a Christian. He knew everything that this man would do for the rest of his life, including every sin he would commit.

And yet, the God of the universe chose him and adopted him as his child.

Paul described this miraculous reality: “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!’” (Romans 8:15). There was no Jewish process of adoption: if a man died, his brother immediately became the head of his family and the father of his children. In Roman context and thus for Paul’s readers, however, the concept of adoption took on a powerful meaning.

Patria potestas (“the power of the father”) extended to a father’s children from their birth to his death. He could disown them, sell them as slaves, and even have them killed if he saw fit. However, if he adopted a child, that child could never be disowned, sold, or executed. They would be a permanent part of the family.

When the Spirit inspired Paul to use adoption in describing our status with our heavenly Father, he meant us to understand that nothing can cause God to disown us. To the contrary, as Paul declared later in Romans 8, “Neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (vv. 38–39).

The biblical answer to the “human condition”

In a culture that measures us by our appearance, possessions, performance, and popularity, it is terrifying to be known as we truly are. In Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?, psychologist John Powell writes of “the imprisoning fears and self-doubt which cripple most of us and keep us from forward movement on the road to maturity, happiness, and true love.”

He adds: “None of us wants to be a fraud or to live a lie; none of us wants to be a sham, a phony. But the fears that we experience and the risks that honest self-communication would involve seem so intense to us that seeking refuge in our roles, masks, and games becomes an almost natural reflex action.

“After a while, it may even be quite difficult for us to distinguish between what we really are, at any given moment in our development as persons, and what we pose as being. It is such a universally human problem that we might justifiably call it ‘the human condition.’”

Here’s the biblical answer to this “condition”: the God who is love (1 John 4:8) loves you more deeply, passionately, and unconditionally than an earthly father can love his children. He grieves your struggles and suffering even more than parents grieving the death of a child. He stands ready to guide your path with omniscient wisdom no human father can match. He will empower your obedience with omnipotence the strongest father cannot begin to offer.

What hidden pain, shame, or grief do you need to entrust to his loving grace today?

What temptation, challenge, or decision do you need to entrust to his omnipotent providence?

Denison Forum

When King George VI of Great Britain died on February 6, 1952, his oldest child, Princess Elizabeth, succeeded him to the throne. Yesterday, the queen became the first British monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee “marking seventy years of service to the people of the United Kingdom, the Realms, and the Commonwealth.”

However, this celebration has been eclipsed by remarks she made in time for yesterday morning’s front pages: she expressed a “sincere wish” that Prince Charles’ wife, Camilla, should be known as “Queen Consort” when Charles succeeds his mother to the throne.

Elizabeth is a “Queen Regnant” in that she inherited the throne following the death of the previous monarch. By contrast, a “Queen Consort” is the spouse of a ruling king, though, as the BBC explains, “Queen Camilla” would be her future title. Since the monarch is the only person who can define royal titles, this is seen as a “hugely significant intervention” by the queen.

I have long admired the queen’s personal faith and steadfast commitment to her people. Her declaration is completely in keeping with her power as a constitutional monarch.

However, it also points to a foundational temptation that lies at the heart of our fallen humanity.

$30 drawing valued at $10 million

A drawing by Albrecht Dürer purchased at a yard sale in 2017 for $30 has been valued by experts in excess of $10 million. A cube made from $11.7 million worth of gold was recently placed in Central Park for a day and protected by its own security detail. And NBCUniversal announced that it has sold out all its ad inventory for next Sunday’s Super Bowl LVI, with multiple thirty-second spots bringing a record $7 million each.

There is no logical argument for such valuations on their intrinsic merits. The Dürer drawing is merely ink (or pencil; the article did not specify) on paper. The value of the golden cube depends on the valuation of gold “set by several banks, an oversight committee, and a panel of internal and external chair members.” Super Bowl ads are worth what advertisers will pay for them.

We could go on: at current metal prices, Olympic gold medals are valued at $750, but the world assigns them a worth beyond financial estimation. Ukraine’s population is .056 percent of the world’s population, but the country’s current geopolitical significance is making global headlines.

China’s Politburo Standing Committee currently has seven members, but they function as the “epicenter” of the nation’s power and leadership. In practical terms, however, the country is led by a single man, President Xi Jinping. The same is true for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Apart from their political offices, neither man would be a threat to the world by himself, but each wields power by virtue of positional economic and military authority that can change the world overnight.

“I wanted to be president of the world!”

Here’s my point: our ultimate value is not ours to determine, though we are tempted every day to live as though it is. We each want to be our own god (Genesis 3:5), kings of our own kingdom. But we are unable by ourselves to become what we most want to become. 

In The Preaching Event, esteemed preacher John Claypool records an admission he once made to an audience at Yale University: “People used to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I was shrewd enough to fashion my answer according to what I thought they wanted to hear. For some it was a policeman, for others a fireman or a preacher. However, in my own heart of hearts, I had my own private fantasy that I never dared to share with anyone. Do you know what it was? I am telling you the gospel truth: I wanted to be president of the world!”

And yet, Claypool never achieved his childhood aspiration. Nor have I become what my egotistical heart wishes to be. Nor have you, I would guess.

But we try. We seek the admiration of those whose opinion we respect, the success valued by those we strive to impress, the authority conferred by governments on their leaders. As a counselor astutely told me, “I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am.” Many people live for such approval from those whose opinion they believe will validate their lives and ensure their significance.

This changes everything

Here’s the good news: our actual value has already been determined by One whose opinion is the only opinion that truly matters.

Camilla Parker Bowles will one day become “Queen Camilla” because the present queen deemed it so. If Christ is your Lord, you are already the “child of God” because the King of the universe deemed it so.

My high school youth minister gave me advice I have repeated often over the years: Always remember the source of your personal worth. Here it is: “To all who did receive [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12–13).

Why did God confer such status on us? “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God” (1 John 3:1).

This changes everything. Knowing that we are now and forever the beloved children of the God of the universe gives us status and significance the world can neither bestow on us nor take from us. It fills the deep hunger of our souls for meaning and worth. It is a transformative gift we are now called and privileged to pay forward to everyone we can, however we can.

“Why do I keep leaving home?”

Our status as God’s children has so gripped me in recent days that I want to explore it with you in Daily Articles across this week. For today, we’ll close with these questions:

One: Have you become the child of God through faith in Christ? If not, why not? (For answers to frequent questions about Christ and salvation, please see my website article, “Why Jesus?“)

Two: If you know you are a child of God, how is this fact most relevant to your aspirations and needs today?

Philosopher J. P. Moreland noted: “I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found. Why do I keep ignoring the place of true love and persist in looking for it elsewhere? Why do I keep leaving home where I am called a child of God, the Beloved of the Father?”

Why, indeed?

Denison Forum

Greetings from the Arctic tundra known as Dallas, Texas.

A major winter storm brought rain, freezing rain, ice, and snow to the middle section of the US yesterday. More than one hundred million people in twenty-five states have been under winter weather alerts. Thousands of flights have been canceled, schools and businesses are closed, and officials are urging us to stay off roads. I am writing this article inside a house covered in snow surrounded by roads covered in ice.

In my current circumstances, I found this story interesting: a homeowner in Connecticut accidentally set their house ablaze while trying to thaw their property with a flamethrower. The owner was attempting to melt ice and snow and “accidentally ignited” the side of the home, according to fire officials. Firefighters were able to extinguish the flames and save the house.

Let’s consider this story as a cultural metaphor.

Why trust God when trusting God doesn’t seem to help?

The social scientist Julian Rappaport defined “empowerment” as “the mechanism by which people, organizations, and communities gain mastery over their lives.” It is empowering to take proactive steps in dealing with a threat.

For example, the leader of the Islamic State was killed yesterday in Syria. He blew himself up along with members of his family as US special operations forces targeted his location. This news comes as evidence of a resurgence of ISIS in Syria and Iraq grows by the day. (For more, see “Should we fear radical Islam?”)

By contrast, when we face challenges for which we can find no solutions or take no apparent action, we feel impotent and frustrated. Like the Connecticut flamethrowing homeowner, we might take steps to solve the problem that only make it worse. Or we might retreat from the “storms” we face and abandon the struggle.

We are all facing such storms, from the ongoing pandemic to geopolitical threats to chasmic political divisions to ever more aggressive immorality. When you’re “stuck inside” as I am today, how is biblical hope relevant? If you’ve prayed for God to change your circumstances but your circumstances do not seem to change, what difference did praying make? If you feel trapped by your world, why should you keep trusting the God who made your world?

If my car broke down constantly, I wouldn’t keep buying cars from that manufacturer. If a restaurant’s food repeatedly gave me food poisoning, I wouldn’t keep eating in that restaurant. If my doctor’s advice and prescriptions were not helping my condition, I wouldn’t keep going back to that doctor.

It’s not surprising when skeptics ask, “Why trust God when trusting God doesn’t seem to help?” It’s only human for Christians to ask the same question.

Let’s consider two biblical responses.

One: Ask and keep on asking

For the first several years of my Christian life, I thought doubts were sins. I believed that if I had enough faith, I wouldn’t have faith questions. Then I found Jesus’ cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). I realized that if the sinless Son of God could ask hard questions, so could I.

I was also encouraged by God’s invitation in Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, let us reason together, says the Lᴏʀᴅ.” I learned that the Hebrew can be translated literally, “Come now, let us argue it out.” Asking hard faith questions is not just not sinful—it is encouraged by God.

So, let’s begin by defining our problem and asking our questions as specifically as possible. Name your suffering, disappointment, fear, guilt, or discouragement. Ask God to heal your pain, respond to your problem, or encourage your mind and heart.

Then take Jesus at his word: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and [the door] will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7–8, my emphasis).

But know this: Jesus’ invitation in the original Greek should be translated, “Ask and keep on asking . . . seek and keep on seeking . . . knock and keep on knocking.” Persist in prayer, not because your prayers change God but because they position you to be changed by his Spirit. They connect you to his presence and power. And they submit your spirit to his Spirit as he works in your life and circumstances according to his perfect will (Romans 12:2).

I believe many “unanswered” prayers were actually prayers we stopped praying before they could be answered. It is always too soon to give up on God.

Two: Be willing to do whatever God says in response

The New York Times reports that nasal vaccines may be the best way to prevent coronavirus infections long term because “they provide protection exactly where it is needed to fend off the virus: the mucosal linings of the airways, where the coronavirus first lands.” However, such vaccines will obviously need to be used to be effective.

We are often the answer to our prayers. If we are praying for spiritual awakening in our immoral culture, we should ask for that awakening to begin with us (2 Chronicles 7:13–14). If we are praying for God’s protection for the homeless in winter, we should ask him how we can help meet their needs (Matthew 25:35–36). If we are praying for reconciliation in a relationship, we should ask how we can take the first step (Matthew 18:15).

A skeptic once asked God, “Why don’t you do more about the suffering in your world?” 

God replied, “I was just about to ask you the same question.”

I believe many “unanswered” prayers were answered by God in ways that required our obedience in response. However, God cannot give what we will not receive or lead where we will not follow.

My decades of “wrestling with God”

I do not mean to suggest that these two factors explain all our apparently unanswered prayers or answer all our faith questions. I still do not understand my father’s early death or have complete explanations for much of the suffering of our fallen world.

But after decades of “wrestling with God” (cf. Genesis 32:22–32), I have learned that if I will “ask and keep on asking” from a heart that is willing to do whatever my Father asks and go wherever he leads, I often experience his presence, power, and peace in ways that respond to and even transcend my questions and struggles.

Biblical scholar William Barclay observed, “If a man fights his way through his doubts to the conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord, he has attained to a certainty that the man who unthinkingly accepts things can never reach.”

Why do you need such certainty today?

Denison Forum