Fingerprints
“For all those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.”
– Romans 8:14-17 CSB
“In the Greek and Roman culture, to be adopted would be a legal ceremony where by adults would be adopted into another’s family…
When you become adopted, you became the legal heir of the person who adopted you. When this kind of adoption was done, every record of your previous life was stricken from the books. Every debt you owed, every crime you committed. Your name, your birth date. It was all removed from the record books. And your new birth date was the day you were adopted. Do you see the richness of this analogy for us? Your adoption by God is permanent. You can’t be un-adopted. It was irrevocable” – Pastor Tony Walliser
A couple of weeks ago, temperatures were beginning to warm up again after a couple of weeks of colder than normal temperatures in our area. I took my dogs outside for some pre-bedtime backyard time, where they stretched and sniffed, and even chased the ball a few times.
While they were doing their thing and I was out there thinking about how warm the days were becoming (and how cold I was feeling at the moment), I looked up and noticed how beautiful the sky was. It was virtually a cloudless night, except for some wispy clouds where it felt like you could see a million stars, with a million different colors and shades.
As I stood and marveled at God’s great creation, the dogs had decided that they had had enough and were ready for bed. So I asked one of them to drop the ball from his mouth and began to walk into the house. Then I stopped and looked up at the heavens one more time, and that’s where I noticed it and had to smile.
The wispy clouds of the evening had been pushed and pulled by the cool evening breeze in such a way that it made a pattern in front of the stars that looked like someone’s fingerprint…
Like God’s fingerprint.
I smiled to myself as I contemplated God’s fingerprints on the sky. And began to wonder, “What if we really could see God’s fingerprints on all that He created, all that He touched, all that He was involved with in our lives? What if we really could see evidence of His hand, of His touch in our day to day lives?”
Then, as one of the dogs nuzzled my hand into a hug from me and we made our way back into the house, I realized that we can…His evidence, His fingerprints are everywhere.
In our hearts.
In our lives.
In His creation.
In His Word.
In His people.
In the birth of a child.
In the transformation of a butterfly…even in the clouds on a cool spring evening.
And it was good.
As adopted children of God, His fingerprints are on us and around us. Just like we love to hold our kids and touch their hands and their heads, He touches us. He loves us, holds us, guides us, and enjoys us as His creation…as His adopted children. As His joint heirs. As His own.
His fingerprints are on us…and it is very good.
“So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female…
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.”
– Genesis 1:27 & 31 CSB