Some Things Just Take Time...

Something that I've been noticing lately is how critical people in the church can be...  Those who tithe, criticize those who don't...  Those who adopt criticize those who don't...  Those who faithfully serve the poor criticize those who don't...  Even those who have a regular quiet time criticize those who don't...  We can be a very self-righteous group of people...  And if I'm honest, I can criticize and be self-righteous with the best of them.

But something occurred to me as I've considered our journey with Abby these past two years...  She didn't come into our family automatically behaving the way we would want or doing the things we would hope.  She brought traditions, behaviors and ways from her own land and while some of them were fine, some needed to change.

Just because the adoption was final and Miller was part of her name, she didn't magically change overnight...

And the same is true for Christians...  Just because we are eternally adopted into God's family and we have a name change to 'Christian', we don't transform overnight, it takes time.

Abby had to get to know us and love us, she had to learn what it meant to be a part of a forever family and she needed to learn some of the ways of our culture (like you don't slurp your soup out loud!). 

And the same principle applies to us, as Christians.  We don't get to know God overnight...  It takes time for His character to influence ours...  It takes time to grow to love Him, to know His ways and to obey Him...  It takes time for His Word to shape our hearts...

Patience and a WHOLE lot of grace has been essential on the journey of Abby learning to be a part of our family...  I think we need to show that same patience and grace to our brothers and sisters in Christ.   No doubt God shows it to us every moment of every day.