This ad catches my eye because a friend has asked me to speak to a small high school’s assembly tomorrow. Her son — my godson — is a student there and it’s his birthday. He is also adopted.

Birthday = “Day you entered the world.” Under God’s plan, it also means “Day you became part of a family.”

We all enter the world. But it’s a fallen world, so not every person is welcomed into his birth family. Thus:

Adoption: “Second chance to become part of a family.”

Families are important, because we derive so much from them: A name, an identity, opportunities, discipline, and an inheritance.

God has much to say about birthdays and adoption.

He tells us we are actually born dead (spiritually dead, that is). So we need to be born again (have a new birthday, born into the world of God’s Kingdom). That is possible only through Jesus Christ, who produces spiritual life where there was none, producing a new self. Doing so, the Father brings us into His everlasting family by adoption.

In that adoption, we receive the mark of God’s name, His righteous identity, His boundless opportunities (no longer bound by a sin nature), His precious discipline, and His everlasting inheritance.

“Today’s my birthday.”

Some people are still looking for a spiritual sponsor. They are lost, without a provider. They desperately need a second birthday, one that includes eternal adoption.

God actually makes it possible. Because Jesus chose to have a physical birthday, too.

I don’t spend much time at McDonald’s anymore. But there’s a new one near the house with free wifi, and a killer playground I like to frequent.

The playground has its own room – with more seating than the regular dining room. It has an amazing ambiance of white noise (plenty of noise, but none of it distinguishable and distracting). It’s excellent for reading or writing or musing.

I was reading there today, when the manager (the MANAGER) suddenly appeared near my table with a ladder. He said he noticed I was reading, and the bulb above my table was out. Frankly, I hadn’t noticed, but it did make a difference when he climbed the ladder and inspired the bulb to brilliance.

Later I noticed that manager going from table to table, bantering with the moms and dads whose kids scurried around the playground.

I expect to see meandering managers at some restaurants, but McDonald’s? And I’ve never seen a MANAGER self-tend to a light bulb he noticed that might be bothering a customer.

Think that McDonald’s will do well? Me, too. At least as long as that manager’s there. If he gets promoted to something regional or national… well, we can just say he served me well while he climbed the ladder of success.