Regardless of What Our Culture Thinks, Children Are a Blessing

Photo by Larm Rmah on Unsplash
Recently, I came across an article in World Magazine where the author addresses the issue of our current generation not wanting to have children or being concerned about having children. Quoting another source, the author writes about how millennials view parenting as something that “will require them to sacrifice everything that brings them pleasure.” With such a negative and erroneous view of parenting, it is no wonder the self-described acronym “DINK” is becoming more appealing on social media (Dual Income, No Kids). The author writes of how many DINKs on social media tout the benefits of not having children, such as “lazy Saturday mornings, regular travel, dinners out, and restful nights of sleep…” 
 
Sadly, in a separate article published in Christianity Today, the author notes that “the birth rate in the United States is declining. It’s often assumed this decline represents our waning desire for children, but researchers from the University of North Carolina and The Ohio State University disagree. Their data indicates that Americans between the ages of 20–24 want as many children as desired historically. However, it does seem people today are putting off the task of raising children—and as they do, the ideal number of children shrinks.” But why is this happening, particularly among Evangelicals, and is it biblical? To be sure, there are a variety of reasons millennials and, among them, Evangelicals are postponing having children, having fewer children, and (in some cases) choosing not to have children at all. The author later posits that the “anxieties about parenthood today are real: economic uncertainties, ecological crisis, fears of inadequacy for such a consequential task. Whether evangelicals have shared these fears isn’t clear, but in recent years, evangelicals have joined the broader culture in having fewer children and having them later.”

​I recall having a conversation a few years back with a single young man in his mid-twenties who greatly desired to be married but did not want children. He shared with me that he was looking for and praying for that woman who would share a similar desire to marry but determine up front to forego children. When I questioned whether his view of marriage was biblical and lined up with God’s Word, he became visibly agitated, and understandably so. In light of the humanist cultural influences from both inside and outside the church which have surely shaped his mind, why would anyone want to give up “lazy Saturday mornings, regular travel, dinners out, and restful nights of sleep…”? He wanted to experience the joys and pleasures of marriage but not the fruit that should ordinarily come from it—children. What then does one say to this younger generation of professing Evangelicals who see no contradiction between their confession to want to offer up the whole of their lives as a living sacrifice to God and for his glory (Rom. 12:1) and their desire to not “sacrifice everything that brings them pleasure”?
 
First, having children is a creation mandate. After God created Adam and Eve, we read that “God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth’” (Gen. 1:28). But did this apply to every person, or did it simply apply to Adam and Eve exclusively? Was this a general mandate for all of humanity in general, or does it apply to every living human being thereafter? When the woman was created as a helper for her husband, did that only apply to the first woman, or does it apply to all married women? When God told the first man that on the day he ate of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil he would surely die, was it only the first man who would die, or would every man die thereafter? And did the threat only apply to man, or did it apply to women—all women—as well? When God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, did the observance of a seventh day rest apply only to the first man and woman? This would be true only if one accepts that the Decalogue is not binding upon all humanity. The point is that Adam and Eve are the representatives of all humanity, thus what applies to them applies to all. The role and responsibilities given to Adam apply to all men. The role and responsibilities given to Eve apply to all married women. So also, the creation mandate to “be fruitful and multiply” applies to all humans, for those who are physically capable.
 
To want to marry without having children undermines a central purpose in marriage. While the institution of marriage was established by God for the purpose of companionship and sexual pleasure, it was also established for the purpose of being fruitful and multiplying. Ultimately, marriage was established by God to glorify God. And we glorify God to the utmost by desiring to fulfill the purposes for which the sacrament of marriage was created.
 
To argue that not having children is a sacrificial decision being made with the children in mind due to the uncertainty of the world in which we live, the evil we see growing around us, the increasing attacks on our children, the persecution that is growing against Christianity or one’s concerns about being able to adequately provide for any potential children given the current economic conditions we find ourselves in, is to call into question the trustworthiness of God and the trustworthiness of his Word. Jesus promised that if we seek to please God in all that we do and pour out our lives for his glory and strive to live in radical obedience to his Word, he will provide for all our needs (Matt. 6:25-34), and Paul encourages the church in Philippi that “God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19). To worry as to whether we will be able to adequately provide for children is to say to God, ‘I don’t believe you.’ This forces us to ask the question: Do we believe the Bible to be God’s infallible and authoritative Word, or do we not? Do we really trust God?
 
To be sure, there are some who might say that when we look at our income, when we look at our paycheck, the money is simply not there. There is barely enough to pay the rent, let alone provide for another person in the family. Would not having children be to test the Lord our God? But taking God at his word is never to test God even when our experience and rationale screams otherwise. Abraham did not question God when he asked him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, the son through whom Abraham was to be a blessing to all nations (Gen. 12:3). To the human mind, that doesn’t make sense. How was Abraham to be a blessing to all nations through Isaac if Isaac is dead? Abraham doesn’t ask questions. He simply trusts and obeys, and in doing so, brings God an enormous amount of glory.
 
Concerns about whether one would be a good parent is to question the sufficiency of scripture. God’s Word tells us that everything we need to know for living life in this world and for preparing for life in the next world is found in God’s Word (2 Peter 1:3). God tells us that his Word is able to make us “complete and equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:17). This includes parenting. Thus, to be concerned about one’s ability to parent or to not be certain that one is spiritually or mentally ready for the sacrifices intrinsic to parenting is to believe that God’s grace is not sufficient for you (2 Cor. 12:9). While God’s grace may have been sufficient for the apostle Paul’s countless beatings, near death experiences, forty lashes (x5), three beatings with rods, being stoned, shipwrecked, adrift at sea, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from his own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers (2 Cor. 11:23-27), God’s grace may not be enough to sustain us through parenting. Seriously?
 
In the end, to make the conscious decision to marry and not have children or to avoid children out of fear is to question one’s own fidelity to God. Do we really believe God is true and faithful to his Word and to his promises? Do we truly desire to live in obedience to God’s Word and for his glory? Do we truly believe God knows what is best for our lives, or do we actually believe we are the masters of our own destiny? Are we going to take God’s Word at face value, or will we give in to the same lie the devil fed to Adam and Eve, “Did God actually say…?” (Gen. 3:1).
 
Scripture tells us that children are a blessing and reward from God, and blessed is the man who has many of them (Psalm 127:3-5). To be sure, we can sometimes watch in agony as some poor mom in the grocery store is engaged in a tug-of-war with her three-year-old over a candy bar and wonder, ‘Exactly how are children a blessing?’ But when the Bible speaks of children being a blessing, that does not exclusively mean that children bring joy and happiness into our lives. While they often do, this is not what it means for someone or something to be a blessing. Being in a covenantal relationship with Christ is most certainly a blessing, yet Jesus promises his followers that if they persecuted him, they will certainly be persecuted as well (John 15:18-20). And the apostle Paul experienced an enormous amount of suffering for following Christ. For someone or something to be a blessing from God can mean only one thing--blessings from God are designed to draw us closer to him and reveal to us more of his glory and magnificence.
 
Children are a blessing from God in at least one way: they give us a small glimpse of what God experiences with us. As parents, we sacrifice a great deal for our children, beginning with mom staying up all night to feed the baby when he first arrives. When they are sick, we care for them, hold them, place cold rags on their heads, medicate them, hold the bucket for them, love on them, and clean up after them. We make sure they are fed, clothed, sheltered, and protected. Yet so often, what we receive in return is ingratitude, disrespect, disobedience, and defiance, sprinkled with an occasional ‘Thanks mom or dad.’ But at those moments when we just want to give up on trying to get those little snotnose, curtain-climbing ingrates to appreciate us, we need to ask ourselves, ‘How often do I treat God in just the same way (or worse)?’ Yet God is ever faithful, ever patient, ever merciful, and ever forgiving. He is always there for us, will never abandon us, and can never love us less.
 
Children are also a blessing in at least one other way: there is nothing that will give us greater or more accurate insight into our own sinfulness, revealing to us the depths of our selfishness, self-centeredness, and impatience, than having children. When your two-year-old wakes you up at six in the morning saying, ‘I’m hungry!’, it can be tempting to just direct the child to where the milk and cereal are, but you know you would be inviting disaster. So, your choices are to get up and feed the poor child or to tell him, ‘Go away! I’m sleeping.’ Most decent people will do for the child what he cannot do for himself. This is exactly what God constantly does for us. He does for us what we cannot do for ourselves; namely, he sent his Son into the world to earn perfect obedience to the law on behalf of sinners, die on the cross in order to pay for sins, and then rise from the dead three days later. Children force us to think outside of ourselves and to live sacrificially in a way that little else can. And this is a good thing. After all, the goal of the Christian life is to become like Christ. However, we cannot become more like Christ without first mortifying the sin that indwells us, and we cannot mortify the sins that indwell us unless we are able to see them. All of them. Children help us do that.
 
Limiting ourselves to the culturally accepted one or two child unwritten policy or not wanting children at all flies in the face of the Evangelical pro-life message. Evangelicals are great at standing in pro-life lines, going on pro-life marches, praying in front of abortion clinics, and holding up pro-life signs which read “Adoption Is the Option.” But according to the Pew Research Center, approximately 24% of Americans identify as “born-again or Evangelical Protestants.” That’s about 80 million Americans. Of course, of that number, according to the Pew Research Center, only about 36% of professing Evangelicals attend church weekly. Thus, roughly 28 million of professing Evangelicals are committed Christians (or one would think). Yet according to the Adoption Network, there are currently “114,000 foster children eligible for and waiting to be adopted” in the United States. So on the one hand, Pro-Life Evangelicals shout “adoption is the option” to young mothers wondering what to do about their unborn baby, yet on the other hand, there is a growing trend among Pro-Life Evangelicals choosing to limit themselves to one or two children, or not have any at all when there are hundreds of thousands of children in need of a family.
 
“Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward…Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!” (Psalm 127:3-5, emphasis added). According to God’s Word, children are a heritage, a reward, and a blessing from God. Do we really believe that? Do we really believe God’s Word? Do we really believe what God has said? If we truly believe children are a blessing to us from the gracious hand of God, why would we not want God’s blessings? Why would we turn our backs to God’s hand saying, ‘Please don’t give me that blessing’? Or, why do we murmur about the little ones we have? Unless, of course, deep down in the recesses of our mind we actually believe children are not a blessing, but a curse, a burden, an inconvenience, an obstacle to our goals, a challenge to be feared. But regardless of what our culture, our experience, or our rationale tell us--children are a blessing from God, a blessing God wants us to have.