Are We There Yet?

"Are We There Yet?"  It's an inward and outward groaning that rings true in the ear of every person alive.  Most people recognize it as the sound of a whiny child in the back seat of a soccer mom van on the way to any destination over five minutes.  "No we are not almost there yet! We just got on the road!" You can see eyebrows angled down in the rear-view mirror as mama bear stews in the front seat over the annoyance.  The groaning and complaining is like nails on a chalkboard!

Adoption can be a really long road trip.  In the case of the people adopting it feels like you're the kids in the backseat of the minivan heading to Six Flags.  You've been on the road for 8 hours, but this time the driver says, "I know we're heading to the Six Flags, and I don't know how long it will take until we arrive."  Meanwhile, a group of your closest friends and family bombards you with phone calls and texts every 5 minutes asking, "Have you made it yet, and have you ridden any rides? 

In every stage of life we're waiting for something.  Young kids can't wait to get out of school, singles can't wait to finish college and get a dream job, career singles can't wait until they are married, the married can't wait until they have their first kid.  Parents can't wait for their kid to walk, talk, their first day at school, have their second or third child, watch them graduate, empty nest, retire, and finally relax.

In Acts 1, we see Jesus telling the apostles that they're going to have to wait.  They witnessed Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, appearance, and now Jesus had come back!  They ask Him in verse 6, "Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"  Jesus isn't dead, He's alive, and He's back!  It sounds like it's time to restore the kingdom!  However, Jesus responds to them by saying, "It's not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by His own authority."  He then tells them the Holy Spirit is coming and that they'll be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.  Jesus leaves by means of a cloud and two witnesses in white robes tell them that Jesus will come back the same way He just left.  The apostles don't know when Jesus is going to return, but instead of waiting on the hillside for Him to come back, they immediately go and wait for the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, start making disciples of all nations, and the Gospel is spread to the ends of the earth.

We'll never arrive if we're just seeking goals on earth during our waiting seasons, and we'll never stop waiting for the next thing.  I'm encouraged each morning as I waddle down the stairs and see my wife diligently studying the Word of God.  She isn't sitting around waiting for baby Dlugosz to come home, she's actively involved with making disciples and mentoring younger women.  She's staying busy with kingdom work.  By God's grace this won't stop when things get busier in life, or when we feel like we've arrived at whatever point we imagined in a temporal way.

"Are We There Yet?"  Well...yes and no.  We've finished a few goals of the adoption process and now we're waiting for the referral.  Hopefully we aren't groaning about the next self-centered arrival point. The only groaning inwardly that should be taking place in our waiting is the groaning as we eagerly wait for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.(Romans 8:23)  The completed adoption for believers in the already but not yet.


Evan Dlugosz