November is National Adoption Month. You’ll want to listen and engage with this incredible conversation with Tim and Kati Matthews and prayerfully consider what you can do to help those who are without meaningful parental influence. Our church has a special program to highlight the need and opportunity for those considering foster care and adoption called CHOSEN (Christ’s Hope for Orphans - Supporting, Embracing, Nurturing) - and you can look for something similar in your community as well. There are so many things you can do to help those young boys (and girls) who are growing up without parents to love, nurture, and provide for them - if fostering or adopting a child into your family at this time isn’t an option, financially supporting someone who is doing this incredible work would be a great place to start.

As you listen to Tim’s story - of a young man growing up without a father-figure and then God turning his life around so that Tim is now not only able to lead his wonderful family, but also adopt a young boy who probably would have been in a similar situation without a father - that’s a great T4M story! Of course, the adoption story that everyone can have - of being adopted into the family of God by faith, through grace, and the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross - paying the price for our sins and clothing us in His righteousness - that’s the greatest adoption story EVER - and if you have never asked God to make you His son, through the forgiveness of your sins, that’s the first step toward truly being the man that God intended! Thomas Watson wrote in The Godly Man’s Picture, “When the Lord pardons a sinner, he does not pay a debt, but gives a legacy.” There is more to surrendering your life to Christ than the forgiveness of sin - much, much more - the life that God offers, according to John 10:10, is the “abundant life” - filled with the presence and power of God!

The action step from this episode was to first prayerfully consider fostering and/or adopting a child. The second was to be intentional about being in a mentoring/discipleship relationship - for a man to have an older man to speak truth and provide wisdom on his journey, and then for that man to turn and pass that along to a younger man - Tim reminded us that this isn’t an option, but a commandment found in Titus 2:2 - and you need to be obedient in this endeavor. It takes a man...to make a man...let's get busy about doing this important work!