Since Sam asked, I figured I better respond, but wanted to do it in a new thread. So here we go . . .
First of all, let’s establish God’s heart on the matter of children. He LOVES them!
– He sends them angels – Matthew 18:10 “See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”
– Heaven belongs to them – Matthew 19:14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
– He takes care of them – Psalm 72:4 “He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor.”
– They are a blessing – Psalm 127:3 “Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him.”
So, since I propose that the church needs to be more conscious of them and do a better job of incorporating them and holding parents accountable to raising them, what about the singles and the couples without children??
They can still participate in worship (its purpose is to glorify god and strengthen the church). But I also think they need to be willing to be involved in children’s lives. They can be mentors, they can be “surrogate” parents for those children of single parents, they can be foster parents. They can just be wonderful shining examples of Christian men and women. I can look back on growing up at Zion and name a few people (Sam included) that I looked up to who didn’t have their own children, but who impacted my faith life.
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That being said, I have a related topic that I want to raise that will probably make some people mad at me. I believe that God’s design is for the majority of us to experience similar relationships to the ones the trinity has internally and with the church. A couple of those relationships we get for free and others we have to look for or work at.
1) Jesus relationship with the Father. – We all have parents.
2) Communion with the Holy Spirit – If we are Christians, we have this one covered too.
3) Christ’s relationship with the Church – often described as a marriage commitment – You have to be married for this example to be fully understood by you.
4) God’s relationship to his Son – You have to be a parent for this example to be fully understood by you.
So if you aren’t married or don’t have kids, I have a couple questions (I’m not judging you, this is between you and God):
Are you single because you choose to be or because God wants you to be?
Have you prioritized your lifestyle over trying to find a suitable Christian mate?
Are your standards for what you are looking for a little too high?
Are you trusting God to bring the right person into your life?
Are you childless because you don’t like kids (see beginning of note)?
Are you childless because God wants you to be (can’t physically have kids) or because you choose to be? And if you can’t have your own, why don’t you foster/adopt?
Have you prioritized your lifestyle over the mess that children bring?
Are you trusting God that whether you have kids or not should be in his hands?
I’ve often struggled with our own decisions to wait to have a baby “until we were ready”. We weren’t any more prepared to have Hannah in Feb than we would have been if we had had her right after we got married. We didn’t wait to get married like many of our friends and family wanted us to, so why did having children get put on the back burner? It was purely selfish on my part. I wanted to have a semblance of a career before I “had” to stay home with babies. That’s a horrible way to look at children and doesn’t match up with how God views them. Also, it was us deciding to be in control of our lives instead of letting God be in control.
I must say that now I have a baby, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is that much more painful and understandable than it was before I did. And my child isn’t even perfect like Jesus. I’m not saying that you can’t understand it at all, I’m just saying that I think God uses our earthly relationships as examples of his heavenly ones to help us relate.
Cheryl W – He takes care of them – Psalm 72:4 “He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor.”
This is a verse I need when people imply that being single is a problem, as though my having been created lovingly by God is not enough. I believe that God will defend me when I am afflicted by such talk, like right now. Becca, you just put yourself in the place of the oppressor.
And I don’t think a world population of over six billion needs more kids. So to you childless: rock on!
Rebecca I was very careful to use the word “majority” and to be clear that I was not judging the single and the childless. I think if that is God’s will for your life, then that’s great. I wasn’t trying to oppress you or anyone else, just offer some questions to consider.
As a side response, I don’t think that our perception of what the world population should be has anything to do with following God’s will for our lives. He has a plan and its not my place to choose to reject his calling on my life just because I think (or the world tells me) there are already too many kids.