My wife, Tamara, and I are in the process of adopting a little boy from Eastern Europe. The government of the country he's in requires us to travel there twice as a apart of the adoption process. We've already been there once, last month, and are hoping to return as soon as possible so we can bring him home for good. The story of how our lives intersected with his can only be described as divine intervention, because we weren't really looking to adopt when all of this started.
We have two biological children already, Zach is 12 and Hannah is 8. Zach has Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and his life has been difficult. I could share the details of all that this little trooper has endured but that's not the point I want to make in this post. Just know, Zach has been through a lot with this disease and it's not been easy. We know how difficult it is to deal with muscular dystrophy.
Our family is very active in the DMD community and as a part of this Tamara is on several group pages on Facebook for parents of boys with DMD (Duchenne muscular dystrophy primarily affects boys). On one of these pages last year she noticed a post about a little boy who was an orphan in Eastern Europe who had been diagnosed with MD. The person who posted his info wondered if anyone in the DMD community might be interested in adopting him.
Tamara saw the post and asked me about. We knew what to expect with DMD, we had the resources to take care of this little boy, and we knew how hard dealing with DMD could be. The clincher that broke our hearts was the thought that this little guy was going to have to endure all of this without a mommy and a daddy. Our only excuse for not doing it was that it would make our lives, which were already complicated, a little more complicated. In the end we felt that was a poor excuse.
Long story short, within two weeks of seeing the post we had legal papers filed in court in the country where he lives and the adoption ball was rolling. Tamara asked me, "Do you feel bad that we didn't really pray about this?" In a rare moment of spiritual clarity I realized that sometimes you don't have to pray about things when you know that God has clearly called you to do something. In fact, sometimes we can use prayer as a stall tactic to delay doing something we know God has told us to do.
There are certain things in the Christian life that we never have to pray about. Should I share my faith? Should I be a part of a community of believers? Should I honor God with part of my earnings? Should I be compassionate to those in need? Should I eat chocolate? You get the picture. Some truths God has made so self-evidently clear in scripture that we don't have to pray about whether we should do them or not.
Now I'm not saying we should pray less. We live in church culture in America that is painfully bereft of spiritual vitality due to a drought of prayer. I once heard of a Korean pastor who had traveled across America and visited a number of churches. At the end of his trip someone asked him what he thought about the church in America. He responded by saying, "It is amazing what the American churches have done... without the Holy Spirit." Ouch!
Prayer is important and prayer is desperately needed, but don't use prayer as a cover for disobedience. If you know that you are supposed to do something, don't delay by using the pseudo-spiritual excuse of, "Well, I need to pray about." No you don't, just do it!
