Do I ever ask "what am I getting myself into?"

Adoption is something I've seen myself doing for a long time, so I think that there was was this thought that I wouldn't have any doubts through the whole thing. Not true. The thing is, even when I know I am acting in obedience to God, satan tries to keep me from feeling confident and he fills me with fear at times. So, yes, there are times when I wonder, "what am I getting myself into?" Those are the times that I need to hold on to God's promises. Instead of looking to my future and the unknown, I take time to look to my past and all the ways that God has fulfilled His promises and been faithful in my life already. This is one of my favorite things about some of the great prayers in the Bible. I think specifically of some of them in the Old Testament, David in the Psalms, Nehemiah, Moses, and Joshua to name a few. They take the time to thank God for the way that He has shown Himself faithful throughout the history of His people and sometimes personally in their own lives. Nehemiah 9 is one of my favorites. He starts out in Verse 6 with, "You are the Lord, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you." So, he starts at the very beginning; at the creation of the world and then he continues on with laying out a history of how God has shown Himself faithful to them as a nation, even through times of disobedience.

This is something at different times in my life that I have tried to do. I go back through my history, the good and the bad, and I look at everything God has brought me through. There were definitely times when I questioned why I had to experience certain things when I was in the midst of them, but looking back and seeing where I am now I'm able to see how time and time again God showed Himself faithful in my life. Because of that I'm able to say with confidence that what we are embarking on with this adoption is what God would have us do. We are acting out of obedience, and at times I will be filled with fear, but I can trust that God will be faithful with this just as He has been faithful throughout my relatively short history.

There is definitely a time for, "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead..." (Phil. 3:13), but when it comes to being overwhelmed with thoughts of "what am I getting myself into?" I like to look behind to my past and to God's faithfulness in my life.

Just some thoughts...
Hannah