“A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
“It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep (You are wasting your time working to build a life if God isn’t in it. Next verse…)
“Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is His reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
“Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.” Psalms 127:1-5
Planning your family without God is foolishness and a waste of time. We aren’t really in control of this issue anyway. No one is guaranteed to have children or more children. Life, ultimately, is created by God, not by the will of mankind. Now, we have to do our part of course. But God is in control. It is not an accident that infertility is at epidemic proportions in this society. God is not necessarily punishing couples by not giving them children (God certainly wasn’t punishing Sarah of old with her barrenness, but was using her to display His glory), but He is punishing our society as a whole for our attitude towards children and Him.
Can you imagine the church having this attitude towards new converts that we have towards children?
“We have enough people and don’t need anymore. What can we do to fix it so we don’t grow anymore?” How horrible!
The Bible says children are blessings and debt is a curse, yet we take medicines and have surgeries to avoid the blessings and apply for the curses. Something is not right here.
I wonder how long before this attitude does seep into the church about new converts. “More people would be too expensive (more Sunday school curriculum, bigger building, etc.), it would be too hard to train them, there are enough Christians in the world, etc.”
Yes, I know all the arguments. “We can’t afford more, it would be irresponsible, the world is over populated, I can’t handle more, I don’t want to destroy my health, etc.”
Let’s look at them…
“If it is God’s will, it is His bill.” You can afford whatever God wants you to afford. If children are a gift of God and God supplies our needs, God is bound by scripture to provide for those children He gives you.
Now, everyone I have heard say they can’t afford to take a chance of having more children by asking God His opinion on the number of children they should have are living a middle class lifestyle. So their actions say that they really mean “We can’t afford our fancy house, cars, clothes, and vacations if we have more children.” This may very well be true. God doesn’t want us to worship in the predominate religion of America known as Materialism. He just might give you enough children (if you let Him) to bring you down to a level where He becomes the most important thing in your life instead of your importance being in your standard of living and your image.
I am not saying everyone should have two-dozen children. I am saying we, the American church, have kicked God out of the bedroom. We don’t want to know what He thinks in this area so we don’t ask Him. We are afraid He will mess up our nice little, ordered world by telling us to do something like bring one more eternal human souls into the world than we planned on. It is almost like we think God is sitting up in heaven waiting for us to say “How many children should we have?” so that He can say “Bwahhhh (evil laughter)! Now I’ve got them. I get to ruin their lives with more babies!”
Does this bring us to “It would be irresponsible”? After all, we all look at the large family in the fast food restaurant and think “welfare mom!” Don’t tell me you never have. (I did. About eight children ago.) Our media and schools are too good at their brain washing for this to not be true. We need to get over what other people think. Easier said than done, I know.
Of course we all know that there are too many people on this planet. I mean, there have been whole books that have figured out that England will have food riots and America will have mass starvation; disease will be rampant everywhere, natural resources will skyrocket in price…oh, wait a minute. Those books were written more than forty years ago and set the date for these events to be in the 1980’s. I am writing this in 2009. I either missed all that or it never happened. In fact, the leading, none catastrophe news items this year has been “Everyone is too fat! We are all dieing of fat induced diseases like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc.” Natural resources (when adjusted for political meddling) are cheaper than ever in history. More people all over the planet are living better, healthier, longer lives. There is no evidence for the world being overpopulated. Just opinions.
The idea that the world is over populated stems from the idea that there is no God. If there is a God, and He is all knowing and loves human beings, why would He create a world without all the resources necessary to support all the lives that will be here in the course of history? Claiming we can not trust God to control our wombs in order to keep from running out of resources is a pretty big condemnation of God's wisdom, power, and love.
Technology is increasing FASTER than the world’s population. In fact, it may be that all those new minds that have entered the world in the last hundred years are responsible for that increase. More people mean more workers, more division of labor, more prosperity for everyone!
You will find the countries that have the biggest “population problem” are not the most densely populated countries (those would be Monaco, Hong Kong, Singapore, Gibraltar, and Vatican City. Not India, Ethiopia, China, nor any of the others you hear about when this subject is discussed.) The fact is that all the countries listed as having too many babies really have too many politicians! They are socialist and/or religious dictators. The common people in these countries equate babies with more workers and prosperity. The politicians are the ones killing each other off and blowing up food supplies. I say we have as many babies as possible and put limits on the number of politicians instead!
“I can’t handle more children.”
How do you know that? You may have been over stressed once while baby sitting more children, but baby sitting in no way resembles caring for your own.
Many people feel too stressed at two or three children to consider having more, also. I will reveal the best kept secret of large families: It gets easier after the fourth. Yes, that's what I said. It is easier after four. When my first child was born I had to entertain her, care for all of her physical needs, do all the house work, and cook all the meals. I was alone (at least until my husband got home from work). Stressville. Numbers two and three just added toddlers into the mix.
By the time my fourth was born I had other children old enough to really help around the house. I never had to worry about entertaining the little ones. I had time to really enjoy my baby! This is not saying I make my children slave all day. Yes, there is a lot of work to make a large family house run, but we have so many people working I have trouble giving them enough to do! (About an hour of chores and a total of an hour of straightening up spread out over the whole day per person working, total, in order to teach a proper work ethic.)
Babies seem to be a curse to us because we make them to be. ANY blessing can be turned into a curse if you try hard enough. We have all heard of people winning the lottery and being broke and declaring bankruptcy within five years. Humans are quite good at this.
11 ways to turn God's blessings into a curse.
1) Get mommy a career so she can resent any time her kids distract her from her "real" job.
2) Deliver your babies in a hospital. Just the atmosphere is so sterile and unnatural that it makes you want to avoid going there at all costs. And with the current c-section rate at 30+%, the very real chance of major abdominal surgury is enough to keep anyone form getting pregnant.
3) Stick your kid in daycare as soon as possible so they can't possibly bond with anyone and learn trust and security much less how to behave or work. Plus, since daycare kids have a much higher rate of ADHD and learning disabilities, this will make them even more of a pain.
4) Send your kids to government school so they can't learn your values or become more attached to you than to their peers. This will creat conflict in your home.
5) Buy your children every latest do-dad, beginning before they are born. You want to make sure they think they have to have what everyone else does. And the fastest way to make something into a curse is to hit your pocket book.
6) Dress your children in fashionable clothing. Looking like everyone else makes them think like everyone else, encourages rebellion and will cost you thousands of dollars to boot.
7) Set them in front of the TV every waking moment. This warps the brain and molds attitudes into the image of the Hollywood snobs.
8) Never teach them to obey, use manners, or control themselves. Then you won't be able to stand being in the same room.
9) Don't teach them to work so you will be expected to be their slave.
10) Make sure you tell everyone you meet what awful kids you have and how awful parenthood is. This will reinforce the sentiment in your brain. And if said in front of your children, so much the better. That will instill a spirit of rebellion in them.
11) Don't love your mate. You must make sure your children have no examples of love to confuse them.
12 ways to turn a curse into a blessing.
1) Mommy determines that caring for her children IS her career, and strives to do the best job possible at it. (Could there possibly be a more important career than raising citizens for the kingdom of God?)
2) Deliver your babies at home (if health permits). Pregnancy is not an illness. The normal atmosphere of the home reduces stress (and exposure to deadly germs!) and makes the whole event more enjoyable and far less dangerous.
3) Keep your children at home with you. This promotes bonding and security in little minds.
4) Teach your children yourself. This gives you the opportunity to teach them your values as well as the added bonus of learning all the neat things you have always wanted to learn and never had the chance before.
5) Give them very little time with their peers. You want them dependent on their family not other little kids.
6) Provide them with plenty of siblings. Far more entertaining than toys and better for them.
7) Teach them to be discerning of what things are needs, what are wants and what are desires. Supply all their needs, some of their wants and few of their desires.
8) Buy second hand or low cost clothes. Actively teach them not to follow the crowd.
9) Do not let them watch much TV. Teach them to serve others and entertain themselves instead. This actually produces better attitudes and a great deal more entertainment for you as you watch them play.
10) Teach them to obey, use manners, and control themselves. Then everyone will love being in the same room with them.
11) Give them chores to do, gradually teaching them to run a household. This gives them a work ethic they will need in adulthood and relieves your work burden. In addition, it teaches them that they are worthwhile, important members of society. (Studies show that those who do chores as children are happier and richer as adults.)
12) Make sure you tell everyone you meet what wonderful, beautiful, brilliant children you have and how wonderful parenthood is. This will reinforce it in your brain.
13) Love your mate. If you do nothing else, this will make a vast difference in their lives.
I think a major cause of the rise in child abuse in the last couple of decades is that so many of us were raised in two child homes, then squirreled away into classrooms filled with people our own age. We have never really been around small children and have no idea how to treat them or what to expect. Many parents don't know you can expect to tell a two year old to do something and they will do it if you have taught them how.
I can see the difference between my oldest daughter and me, already, even though she is not yet a mother. When they first handed her to me in the hospital, I said "Hey! I'm a mommy…. Now what?" I didn't have a clue what to do with this new little person. Subsequently I made many mistakes due entirely to the fact that I didn't know anything about little kids.
My oldest, however, already knows how to hold a baby, play with a toddler, and comfort a preschooler. She knows what to expect from different children of different ages. She is going to be a far better mommy than I ever was.
“I don’t want to destroy my health.”
God designed our bodies to have many babies. In fact, science is beginning to prove that the natural break from monthly cycles provided to our bodies by pregnancy and nursing is very healthy (as healthy as working to make a church grow is to the congregation) and a cancer and osteoporosis preventative! One doctor observed (about fifty years ago when large families were more common) that all of his patients that had large families were strong healthy women. Those with small families were weak and sickly. He didn't know which came first, the strength or the children, but he leaned towards children causing mothers to be stronger. There may now be proof of this. It seems when a woman is pregnant, the baby leaves some of its cells behind after birth. These cells go to different places in her body and aid healing. Also, every baby you have lowers your risk of cancer by 7%. That is the way God designed us.
Besides, big families are FUN. There is always someone to play with and you are never lonely. I don't know what my hubby and I ever did for entertainment before children. Now we just enjoy sitting around and watching them play:-)
Note: This following chart was written during the time my hubby and I were deciding whether we would have more than two or three children. This is the actual list I made myself to help me decide.
Small Families
- Can go to Disneyland, out to eat, go on vacation and other places more often.
- Have newer clothes and more toys.
- Have one room per child.
- Provide solitude.
- Can more easily afford college
Big Families - Always have someone who wants to "play with me."
- Learn to share, cooperate, get along and work with a team.
- Teach older children how to care for those younger and weaker than themselves. Younger children usually have nieces and nephews just the right age to learn on.
- Are never lonely
- Can more easily influence society.
A large family provides for my children companionship, servitude in the New Testament model, teamwork, and socialization (the right kind because I know what their playmates (siblings) have been taught).
A small family provides things and events.
We now have eight.
"Having five children in six years is the best
training in the world for Speaker of the House."
Nancy Pelosi
Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. Psalms 127:3-5
Let’s run some math; if the average Christian family has two children just like the sinners, then in an imaginary neighborhood with ten families, nine unsaved and one Christian, we would end up with eighteen sinners and two Christians in the next generation. If they each found someone just like themselves to marry and had two children, by the third generation we would have thirty-six sinners and four Christians- still a nine to one ratio.
Now, if the Christian family decides to let God control their family size and they have the historically normal seven children who find mates of like belief and have seven children each, by the third generation we have forty-nine new Christian adults to thirty-six sinners. Research says that it takes thrity-four Christians to win one sinner to God; so in the first neighborhood we have yet to have enough Christians to win one sinner while in the second we have one convert. By the fourth generation we would have 343 christians (not counting our convert) to seventy-two sinners; a ratio of 4.8 christians per sinner, or enough Christians to lead at least ten sinners to God. the numbers just get bigger as you go along.
There are, in fact, two ways to grow a church: bring in new converts throught the door, and bring new babies into the families of the church.
Both are equally valuable.
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