Reasons I Don’t Want to Have a Million Children

Interview between Holly Elliff and Nancy Leigh Demoss

Holly:

“And I remember vividly the day he (husband) came out of his study and said, ‘God has just given me the neatest mental picture of someday sitting on my front porch and looking out and seeing scores of children out there. And we have every temperament type represented. And we have every spiritual gift represented. And our children know how to relate to everybody in the world because they lived with all different types of people.’

And he had this wonderful vision of what it would be like and I immediately said to him, ‘Well, that’s very easy for you to say because I’m the one wearing the stretch pants for the next 20 years. And I’m sorry, but I just don’t want to go there.’ ”

And I really did not want to go there. It was a very frightening thing to me to think of taking my hands off that control in my life. And it took me about six months to work through what I believed the Bible said about that whole issue. And I became an avid student of God’s Word and just began to search the Scriptures for every reference to children, to children as a blessing, to God’s sovereignty in that area as far as opening and closing the womb and looking, honestly, for a way to avoid releasing that area in my life because my preference at that point was not to relinquish that area to the Lord.

As I did that, over and over and over, I found the same things: that God was the Creator of life, that God knew who He wanted to create, He knew what we were going to look like, He had a plan for every person–that it was all His business. It was not what I wanted to find in the Scripture, but that’s what I kept encountering. And I remember vividly one night sitting down at my kitchen table with a legal pad and a sharp pencil and making a list. And at the top of the list I wrote, “Reasons I Don’t Want To Have A Million Children.” And I began to make a list of all the objections I had to what I was seeing in God’s Word.

Everything I had on the list was rooted in selfishness. It came down to whether or not I was better at making decisions than God was. And it suddenly became very clear to me that this was a heart issue, at least in my life. It was a matter of me choosing, just like I said…God was Lord in every other aspect of my life.

We prayed through what to do with our money, we prayed through where we were to pastor. When we bought a car, it was a huge issue that we prayed about and trusted God to give us direction. But in this area it was as if we had said, ‘This area is ours to determine and we will make this decision.’ And for the very first time I was confronted with the fact that I had never really said to the Lord, ‘What is Your will?’ ”

Nancy responds:

“And really, again, we’re saying this is the fundamental issue of life, Is Jesus Lord of every area of my life? And I like the way you made that so practical because you said, ‘We went to the Lord and said, ‘Lord, what do you want us to do in this area of our lives?‘ And the fact is, you and I are not totally free until we have released ourselves, our lives, our future, our marital status, our childbearing, every aspect of our lives fully to the control of Jesus Christ. And somehow, when we come under His control, then we find that we really are free.

The Religion of Self: Choosing Childlessness

Interestingly, with this topic heavy on my mind this week, one of my readers sent me a link to a horrific site, which I won’t link to–a site that promotes a “lifestyle of childlessness”.

Of course what was blaring to me as I stared at the “top 100 reasons not to have kids” was how diametrically opposed each reason was to the life of a Christian.  Well, that’s mild.  In truth, here was a false religion of self-worship, just as God has hated and warned against from the beginning.  As I ponder a lot lately the “disease” of a self-centered culture and all the implications, there it was, staring from my computer screen, making no apologies anymore–”WORSHIP YOURSELF”.

Worse though, is that extreme as a site like this may seem to us, a careful look at it reveals hints of camaraderie many believers share regarding thoughts about children.  (“How will you….with those children?”) Let it not be.

(In fact, and I’m not trying to get flamed for this but…there is little difference, really, in “childless by choice” and “childless by choice after two”.  The premise is very close.) (Intended as a general observation, not a definitive statement for every family in every circumstance.)

Sometimes it takes an extreme look at where we are headed to reveal the errors in the way we are getting there.

Here are a few reasons the site gave for not choosing children:

1. You will be happier and less likely to suffer from depression.
2. (Assuming you get married), you will have a happier marriage.
3. You will have the capacity and time for meaningful, engaged, quality adult relationships.
4. You will be able to save for a comfortable retirement.
5. You are more likely to be an engaged and involved aunt or uncle because you are not jaded and worn down by your own kids.
6. You can fully pursue and develop your career.
7. You can fully pursue your educational goals.
8. You can decorate your home as you wish with as many beautiful and/or breakable things as you wish and you will not have to child-proof your house.
9. Your house will be free of junky, plastic kindercrap.
10. Your spouse will get all the love and attention he/she deserves. You will come first in your spouse/partner’s life.
11. Your pets will get all the love and attention they deserve.
12. You can eat whatever foods you wish at whatever time of the day you wish out in the open, whether it be a gourmet, exotic meal, or chocolate chip cookies.
13. You never have to yell, scold, correct or punish anyone (assuming your spouse and pets are well-behaved
14. Your home will be a quiet and welcoming oasis, instead of a chaotic zoo.
15. Your identity will remain firmly intact.
16. You will enjoy personal privacy.
17. You will get a full night’s sleep every night.
18. You will have the time and energy to exercise regularly and take care of your health and appearance.
19. You will stay informed and engaged in current events and will remain an interesting conversationalist.

“Show me Your ways, O, Lord, teach me YOUR paths.”  Psalm 25:4

Evangelicals “Late to the Discussion of Birth Control”

“Finally, many evangelicals are joining the discussion about birth control and its meaning.”

This line made my heart leap.  Late, indeed to the discussion, but arriving nonetheless.  “Think I’ll Skip the Party” @ The Line summarizes Albert Mohler’s recent commentary on Time’s cover story by Nancy Gibbs discussing “the anniversary of the Pill”, in a serious and succinct call for God’s people to think and connect the dots.

Consider Gibbs’ observation: 

“It was the first medicine ever designed to be taken regularly by people who were not sick.”

Read more »

As the Family Goes, So Goes Civilization

Teach it to your children…

Family and marriage are institutions designed by God–they are not man-made.  Perhaps then, we shouldn’t be surprised that the family is becoming an enemy. Who would have ever believed there would come a time when society would be hostile to what has always been considered the basic unit of its existence?  It is why I think feminism has had the most damaging impact on our culture…because at the core, it seeks to separate family…with destruction as a result.

We have slid down a slippery slope and arrived at the belief that the basic unit of society is the INDIVIDUAL.  (Think about it for a minute…look at all the ways families are divided and the expectations that is should be so…even within the church.)  And when that is believed, the individual is very quickly lost in the state.

“Dr. Carle C. Zimmerman, Harvard University spent his life studying the history of the family.  He has pointed out the family’s significance:  that whenever the atomistic (separate, unrelated members) family develops, in which the authority of the father is no longer paramount, then there is a very quick disintegration of society, the total state takes over, and there is a radical collapse of civilization…..

With the development of the atomistic family–which is really no family at all–the home is simply a place to room and board while the state takes over the role as father–to take care of the family in its every need, providing for the children and the parents; the family no longer cares for itself; civilization collapses. ” -R.J. Rushdoony

(By the way, this paradigm does not exclude the rare single men and women not called to marriage;  all still belong to a family and have a major importance in that role.)

Listen to  Zimmerman’s conclusions:

He believed…

“..that a fundamental purpose of civilization is the empowerment and enabling of the family — and is absolutely key to the health of any civilization. … Nobody undertakes to have a large family because it’s fun, or, in advanced societies, because it’s economically beneficial. They do it because they believe that’s what people do. In other words, they believe that children are a blessing from God, and that we humans are participating in the divine will by begetting children and raising them up to carry on our civilization….

Mankind has consumed not only the crop, but the seed for the next planting as well. Whatever may be our Pollyanna inclination, this fact cannot be avoided. Under any assumptions, the implications will be far-reaching for the future not only of the family but of our civilization as well. The question is no longer a moral one; it is social.”

Building the family is the only option for surviving–slice it any way you like, our ideals and personal opinions won’t erase factual reality.

Thinking Like God About Our Fertility

What if Christians thought about their wombs the way God does…

“And the LORD said to her, two nations are in your womb…” Genesis 25:23

From the Mouth of a Child

My son and I shared some early morning hours together…us and Baby Ellia.  Watching her funny antics–one of our favorite things to do, he said:

“I’m glad God made babies and didn’t just send us here big.”

He asked me if she had let me sleep last night, and I explained her typical waking up about 3 times–par for the course almost since she was born.  We’re working on it, but for the moment, God has given me supernatural energy to combat the lack of sleep…mostly.

“Even losing sleep isn’t worth not having her”,  he said with a grin.

“You’re so right, Ashton.”

I pray that I would maintain such a child-like, eternal perspective in life, rejecting the jaded thought of the world that something hard is something to avoid.