Intimacy Creates New Life
One of the first commands God gave us is to procreate: “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28), and multiplication is the natural overflow of intimacy. It is God’s math: the two shall become one and the new one shall become a multitude. “Out of your seed I will bless the nations” (Genesis 22:18).
When everything is as it was created, each couple will want to have offspring which will come through the intimate relations of the couple. As the love grows between the couple, they will naturally want to team up and pour out their love on something that has parts of both of them. Their desire is, “I want to become so ‘one’ with you that we will have a child that is the perfect union of the two of us.”
New Life Apart From Intimacy Creates Orphans
Unfortunately some people get together not for love but for what they can get out of the other person. Because the natural tendencies of coming together produces offspring, they have a child that they don’t want because that child is not a mixture of two people in love, but a result of selfish gratification. These children are the ones that often become orphans.
God Created Us as an Overflow of Intimacy in the Godhead
God was so in love with Himself (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), that He wanted an object of their joint love. “Let us make man in our own image, in our own likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Mankind was created out of love within the Godhead. You were created because God wanted another person to join into the love relationship of the Godhead. You were made as a recipient of God’s love.
Intimacy With God is How to Birth a Ministry
As we spend time with God and join into that intimacy, God will birth things out of you. We often call these ministries, but it is more basically a way for God and you to pour out your joint love on something together. Intimacy naturally creates new life. It is how to birth a ministry.
This is what happened to my family when God called us to work with orphans. Nevertheless, sometimes our selfishness doesn’t want to follow what God decides to birth through us. Our baby with God has us selling off everything except what we can fit into 8 bags of luggage and 4 carry-ons. We are leaving what we know for what is promised. We will have to learn a new language and new culture.
My wife in her honesty with God asked, “why did you give us a ministry I don’t want?”. God responded, “how do you think the orphans feel?”
Many People ‘Orphan’ What God Birthed With Them
If we decided to say no to God, we would “orphan” the ministry God wanted to birth through us. By us dying to ourselves to give our full selves to orphans, we are redeeming the negative choices made by their parents. For whatever reason most of these orphans were not wanted by their parents and given up.
The child may have been different (gender or physically) than what the parents wanted, or the child was inconvenient to the parents’ planned future. This calling may be different than what we thought we wanted or a perceived burden to the dreams of our family. However, God in His infinite wisdom knew this was the perfect “child” for us and Him to raise. This calling will create a perfect mixture of the characteristics of our family and the heart of God.
- What are the dreams God is placing in your heart?
- How do you maintain ministry as an outflow of intimacy?