Children are blessings!

Last week, we kind of attempted to wrap things up in our article.  To me, our study has been like a quick stop at a really cool store, full of all kinds of interesting and helpful things, just to get one obscure ingredient.  You wish you could stay and browse all day!

His last point reminds us that no matter our best efforts, without God's blessing and work, it will do no good.  That is such an obvious, yet important, reminder, because if we get away from that fact, we are losing touch with reality.  Really.  As we know,

So then neither is he that planteth any thing, 

neither he that watereth; 

but God that giveth the increase. 

 1 Cor 3:7

Our dependence on the Lord is so important, first of all because without him, we can do nothing!  (John 15:5).  But secondly, it is the Lord to whom we are pointing our children.  Even as they observe our dependence on him, not ourselves, not programs, not parenting books, but HIM, they are learning important lessons that cannot be learned any other way.

Remembering this fact really defuses day-to-day issues that would frazzle us moms to shreds.  So the reminder is really needed.  Have a persistent parenting problem?  Pray!  Humble yourself and tell God you need help, you need wisdom, you need endurance.  He knows our weaknesses.  As our will for our children conforms to his will for our children, we are assured of his help.

In conclusion

"Take heed, lest your own neglect 
should lay up misery for you in your old age."

As he began his essay, so he ends:  with the shocking but true.

Years ago, we took our kids to a dentist and he told us of a new treatment.  I forget the term, but it was applying a coating to the surface of the teeth to prevent cavities.  He explained that teeth have tiny little pores which can retain sugars and lead to tooth decay, and the coating filled them in and reduced chances of cavities (as long as no sugars are unintentionally left in the pores prior to coating the teeth!).

I asked him (knowing God's design of teeth probably far exceeds our understanding) if maybe there was a good purpose to those pores.  He offered an evolutionary what-if explanation.  But then explained that because children always ate so much candy and soda, it really was a necessity to do the coatings.  Otherwise, all that sugar was just gonna cause cavities.

No, dental care is obviously not my point, but it does seem like if we KNOW what will cause problems, and we love our children, and wish to spare them pain, we would do something different.  Yet how often do parents placate whining children to give themselves a little peace?  And where does it lead?  It does not lead to peace, for the child nor the parent.  We must think ahead.

So, we are left with a couple of facts.  The Bible tells us children are a blessing, and more children, more blessing.  (Now, there are Bible examples of folks who were not blessed with children, so it's not God's plan for everyone to have dozens, BUT those couples in the Bible with one or none still desired children because they are blessings!)

Okay, children = blessings in the Bible.

But in the world, our experience is often different.  Many blatantly admit they desire few or no children today, even those who profess to be believers, because of the trouble and imposition often accompanying children.

In fact, in the country of Brazil, unwanted children cause so much trouble, street children run in huge packs.  This is from wikipedia (abridged):

The Candelária massacre was an event in Brazil on the night of July 23, 1993. Eight young people were killed by a group of men, several of which were members of the police. The men were tried for the killings, but only two of them were convicted. 

The Candelária is a famous Roman Catholic church. The marquises of the buildings around it, in the Pius X Square, are known in Rio de Janeiro for being a makeshift home at night to possibly hundreds of homeless children, many of whom are involved with illegal drug trade and prostitution. The church's personnel provides food, shelter, education and religious advice to as many of these children as possible. Because many of the homeless also live around the Church during the day, police keep a constant vigil on the church's surroundings. 

In the early 1990s the area developed a high crime rate as some of the homeless engaged in criminal activities such as pickpocketing, theft, etc. 

According to survivors, the morning of the day before the massacre, a group of children threw stones at police cars. Some of the policemen allegedly told them, "don't worry, we will get you soon!" As children from the Candelária church were usually given warnings such as these by policemen, the young perpetrators left without worrying too much about the threat. 

At midnight, a few cars came to a halt in front of the Candelária church. Next, shots were heard. The children tried to take cover, but eight of them were shot to death, with several others wounded. One of the children present that night, Sandro Rosa do Nascimento, would later commit one of the most infamous crimes in Brazil's history. 

It has been estimated that 62 street children survived the massacre. A social worker who later tracked the fate of these homeless survivors found out that eventually 39 of them were either killed by police or by elements of street life.

Brazil has very strict laws on abortion, and many see legalized abortion the solution to the problems with street children.  These are unwanted children, after all.  Many believe they should have been aborted. 

Again, in the Bible, children = blessings.  

Our hearts go out to these street children, and maybe we would even desire to take some of them in.    But if the Lord prevents that, we are still left with those in our charge, and we must guard our hearts to not have the same attitude as those who consider children an nuisance or annoyance, or even just as a power-draw.  

Fathers and mothers, I charge you solemnly before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, take every pains to train your children in the way they should go. I charge you not merely for the sake of your children's souls; I charge you for the sake of your own future comfort and peace. Truly it is your interest so to do. Truly your own happiness in great measure depends on it. Children have ever been the bow from which the sharpest arrows have pierced man's heart. Children have mixed the bitterest cups that man has ever had to drink. Children have caused the saddest tears that man has ever had to shed. Adam could tell you so; Jacob could tell you so; David could tell you so. There are no sorrows on earth like those which children have brought upon their parents. Oh! take heed, lest your own neglect should lay up misery for you in your old age. Take heed, lest you weep under the ill-treatment of a thankless child, in the days when your eye is dim, and your natural force abated.

We live in a fallen world, so we don't always observe things working exactly like the Lord intended originally.  And, as Ryle mentions earlier and we all know, we cannot save our children or ensure certain behavior just by our parenting.  But in the midst of a world that says "unwanted" children are not a blessing, we are told children are a blessing.  As followers of Christ, those who are told to "... be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God," (Romans 12:2), we must not allow a fatalistic, or even pragmatic, view of things in regard to the family.  

So if our experience, as we look at the world in general, is that children are not always a blessing, lets adjust our thinking by trusting God's Word.  The Bible explains it is not because there are just too many of them, or that children are just a bad deal.  More often than not, children are not seen as blessings because parents are not pouring their lives into their children and seeking to perform the "duties of parents" laid out in the Scriptures.  Let's try to look ahead and seek to do that.

Ryle wrote this article in the 1800's.  In 1784, William Cowper wrote this, speaking of the hearts of our children:

But, if thou guard its sacred chambers sure
From vicious inmates and delights impure,
Either his gratitude shall hold him fast,
And keep him warm and filial to the last;
Or, if he prove unkind (as who can say
But, being man, and therefore frail, he may?),
One comfort yet shall cheer thine aged heart,
Howe’er he slight thee, thou hast done thy part.  

There is so much to do and consider in our task as moms, so our attitude should never be "I tried all that already, and it didn't work."  There are innumerable bad influences from which to protect our children, all the scriptures to teach and live out, and our own daily testimony as our children observe our ways.  It cannot all be contained in one mere list of duties.

Truly, we need the miraculous work of the Lord in our children, and as Mary said to the servants at the wedding in Cana, "...Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." (John 2:5)