The Gift of Citizenship

Several weeks ago Mel and I went to a government office and then a police station to get our fingerprints taken. No, we weren't being booked (Danno), we were providing our fingerprints to the U.S. Government so that when our adopted child lands on American soil with us, he will automatically receive U.S. citizenship. It was a terrible ordeal - not because anything went wrong, but simply because we were feeling the intensity of the battle for our child's future life with us. This past week, we received a letter in the mail from the US Customs and Border Protection: our child's future citizenship is approved!

This for me is a big deal for many reasons. On one hand, a "new" citizenship is something that means more to me as a citizen of two countries than it may mean to someone who's grown up as a citizen-by-default of the nation they were born in. It also means a lot to me that something I really prize - my American citizenship - will be given to my future child even though he, like me, was born in another country.

Having an American mother, I was considered an American citizen the day I was born, even though I was born in a women's hospital in south London (right across the street from the Clapham South Tube Station - go Clapham!). While I remain a British subject to this day (and am very proud of that in its own right), I have the gift of American citizenship. It was given to me by my mum. All the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of that citizenship were granted to me free. That gift has allowed me to move to the States and make a new life for myself. And now I get to pass that on!

But more than that, it means something to me spiritually. St. Paul writes in Philippians 3 that we all can be citizens of the Kingdom of God, not just of this world. While we possess citizenships in the nations of Man, those who choose to serve the Lord have a greater citizenship in His Kingdom. We obtain this citizenship the moment we choose to be adopted into His Family through salvation. We then live, work, and have fellowship with our fellow Citizens and we celebrate daily our higher Allegiance (while still of course respecting and working for the spiritual health of our earthly countries - I Peter 2, Romans 13, etc). God created this holy citizenship and has been working since time began to encourage the human race to receive it through adoption into His family.

How is this relative to my upcoming fatherhood? My future child has no idea that right now, at this very moment, he has the certainty of being an American citizen as well as part of my family. He is stuck in a fetid crib in a crumbling orphanage, probably starving, emaciated, and dejected. He has no idea that Mel and I have worked so hard and done so much for him just so that he can come be with us and enjoy the citizenship we have. But one day, he will. We will pick him up and bring him home. He will enjoy his citizenship that we worked hard to get for him. It has been so hard for me and Mel to get this. It has taken time out of our work days, time out of our lives, time away from our friends, and has been unfathomably stressful. In essence, it has taken sacrifice. In the same way the Christ sacrificed for us so that we could have citizenship in His Kingdom, Mel and I have sacrificed so that our future child, even though he doesn't know it right now, can have citizenship in our "kingdom." But best of all, like Jesus who has been victorious and who rejoices when we obtain His citizenship, we will too. This adoption will one day be done, we will see victory, and we will enjoy our citizenship as a family together!