jane

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

How many children?

My husband and I were at an after-Christmas party with friends last week. It was good to see everyone. These are friends he's known since high school. Surprisingly, most of the couples still live in the area, though with everyone's busy schedules, it is hard to make time to see each other. At the end of the night, conversation turned towards the number of kids people have, as one of the couples present are a new aunt and uncle to his brother's 8th child. The comment was, "Man, how do you have a life [with so many kids]? Well, I REALLY wanted to say something to that, but I didn't want to start anything, and I didn't want to embarrass my husband. Here are the things that came to mind when he said that....

1) No where in the Bible does it talk about people being able to "have a life" aka have a bunch of fun in life. To the contrary, life is to be lived in service to God and others. To not have children because you "want to have a life" is such a selfish reason!

2) There are many Bible passages that talk about "being fruitful and multiplying" (Genesis 1:28) and "children being a reward from God" (Psalm 127:3) etc.

3)People today are having a lot less children than in the past and some countries are worried about extinction b/c their inhabitants won't have children.

4) It's not his business (or anyone else's) how many children a family has. That is between God and the family.

But, I didn't say anything. Maybe I should have. Would you have?

I'm sure there is more to say about this, but those were the thoughts that came to mind.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think you're right on with your thoughts. like you, I would have wanted to say something...but I don't know if I would have. (Though there was a time when I would have, ha, ha.) I don't think there is such a thing as "too many children", as long as the parents are able to take care of them. People seem to think that anything Biblical is weird. I run into it every day. It's very sad.