Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t need to eat or drink for weeks or even months? Imagine you were so strong you could carry hundreds of pounds of cargo without requiring one gallon of gasoline, without producing one drop of sweat!

Do you know who I am yet? I will provide more clues! I am long-legged, awkward and ugly. I don’t have the need for liquids for long periods of time because I have three 5-gallon stomachs. I don’t have the need for food for long periods of time because I have this hideous hump of fat on my back that stores energy I need for when I don’t have any food at all.

It may look like I hold my head up high out of arrogance, but in reality, I’m just trying to see out from underneath my big ol’ bushy Andy Rooney eyebrows. Those eyebrows, by the way, are my only eye protection from the bright sun’s harmful rays. I also hold my head up high because it’s easier for me to breathe with my nose up in the air so I don’t have to smell myself. I am not blessed with the pleasant aroma of a cool mountain breeze. In other words, I stink!

And sometimes, when I’m breathing, it may sound as if I am suffering from an advanced stage of emphysema, but in reality, I’m just spitting and snorting because of yet another imperfection. I am ill-tempered.

One of my rewards for being what and who God created me to be was to be classified as unclean. Thank you very much. At least that meant some people wouldn’t eat me, but after carrying people to war, giving them the hair off my back, milk to drink and working so hard they call me the ship of the desert, I would like a little respect.

I am camel. Hear me snort.

I hope you enjoy a good laugh as I describe myself, how the world looks at me and how I look back at the world, but the truth is we may have a lot in common you and me, providing you’re the person God created you to be.

Like you, I think it would be nice to be valued by the world for being who God created me to be, for doing what God created me to do, but it’s obviously more important to be valued by God. Unlike you, I am among the ironies of the Bible. In the Old Testament, when someone owned many camels, it was a sign of wealth and privilege. In the New Testament, Jesus uses me as an example when he says it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. (Matthew 19, Mark 10, Luke 8). How ironic is that? I can’t speak from the perspective of a rich person. I don’t have material possessions. I don’t have money to give to the poor, but I’ve given everything I have. The weight on my back has never been my own. It’s always been everybody else’s. These are words Jesus himself might speak.

So make do with what you’ve been given and give back what you can. If a smelly camel can have a unique Godly purpose on Earth then what greater significance does God hold for you? Be who God created you to be. Hold your head up high and let the whole world wonder why! You might even get a little respect. All things are possible with God!

Come this weekend to Saturday @ six or Sunday morning at 8:30 or 11 a.m. The message is “The Camel and Me” based on Mark 10.

Honored to write for the camel,

Rev. Dr. Dennis Andrews

Reverend Andrews is Minister at Community Presbyterian Church of Deerfield Beach (Steeple on the Beach) located five blocks south of Hillsboro on AIA. See more @ www.communitych.org or on Facebook.

Rev. Dennis Andrews

Many years ago, a friend and his wife learned they would not be able to have their own natural-born children. They decided to adopt. It took the patience of a judge for them to move through the process, but they finally succeeded.

They imagined an infant from the beginning. An infant, they thought, would be perfect and know them as parents from the outset.

What they received were not one, but two young boys. These boys were anything but infants and anything but perfect. They had been abused by their drug-addicted parents. The boys arrived with mental, psychological and emotional baggage.

But my friend and his wife were steadfast in their parental duties, long-suffering in their love for these two boys through formative years of school expulsions, arrests, juvenile detention and one heart-wrenching problem after another.

My friend once told me, “As hard as it has been, our faith has grown alongside these boys. The experience may have given us insight as to how God feels watching us grow!”

Adoption meant these boys received far more than a new last name and safe place to stay. They were adopted into a family. They were forgiven even when they didn’t deserve it. They were loved. They survived.

Did you ever wonder what would have become of baby Moses had he not been adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter or what would have happened to Hadassah, the beautiful young woman who became Queen Esther, had she not been adopted by good ole Uncle Mordecai?

Moses likely would have been drowned with the other male babies. Hadassah probably would have been killed with the rest of her people. The course of human history and the development of Judeo Christian faith traditions would at the very least be different were it not for God’s plans for adoption.

What are God’s plans for adoption today?

There are thousands of children in South Florida in need of physical adoption. If you are able, then I encourage you to consider adoption. But the truth is, we all have need of adoption, just an adoption of a different, more permanent kind.

The Apostle Paul says it this way: “Even before God made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ….”

[Ephesians 1:4-5, NLT]

Our most important adoption is made possible by the cross, not by the courts. There is no lengthy legal process. We consent to our adoption when we accept Christ as Lord.

No perfection required. None of us remain innocent as a newborn child. We all have baggage. None of us are always loveable and we may not deserve forgiveness, but we can all have it through Christ.

Pray God continues to be steadfast and longsuffering with the open loving arms of adoption, patiently watching us grow and accepting us into the family.

Ever think about adoption? I hope so, because the most consequential adoption you will ever think about is your own …

Reverend Dr. Dennis Andrews is a former Indiana Sheriff and Mayor and a graduate of Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He is a member of the Tropical Presbytery of Florida (Presbyterian Church USA) and installed pastor of Community Presbyterian Church (Steeple on the Beach) of Deerfield Beach located five blocks south of Hillsboro on AIA.