An Inconvenient Blessing

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
-Psalm 127:3-5

A good friend of mine got married on May 27th, 2006. Yesterday, he and his wife announced that they are expecting a baby, with a March 19th, 2007 due date! According to a calculator at parenthood.com, the likely date of conception was June 26th, or just a shade under a month after they said "I do."

And no, it wasn't an "accident."

My wife and I got pregnant about 5 months after we were married, and at that time several of our friends from church asked us, you know, if we had, um, been "trying" or not. Our frank answer was that we weren't trying not to!

The assumption behind this question, I believe, was that we couldn't possibly have wanted to have a child so soon into our marriage. The big idea as I understand it is that you're supposed to wait at least a few years before you start "trying" so that you and your newly-wed spouse can have a joyful, wonderful, blessed season of "just the two of us" where you can focus on your marriage and "get it right" before you have to deal with the inconvenient blessing of children.

This attitude was expressed by another of our friends yesterday as we talked about the expecting couple's news. Mrs. X, as she will be called, said that she felt bad for the couple. Surprised, I said that we were thrilled for them and that we couldn't imagine a better blessing, especially given that the couple was frequently and passionately praying that God would soon bless them with a child. Mrs. X replied that she was, of course, excited for them because babies are really exciting, but that "realistically" she was concerned that they wouldn't have the childless season as mentioned above.

–An aside– I don't mean to pick on Mrs. X because this statement could have been made by just about anyone in any church anywhere in America. If you guess who Mrs. X is, please don't hold it against her. I definitely don't.

Speaking "realistically," we Christians have done a pretty poor job of understanding what God says about marriage, children, and the godly family. We consider our children to be a burden, an interruption to our otherwise perfect lives. God tells us that children are a blessing, even a reward to us. The Bible calls children a reward from the Creator and Sustainer of our universe, but we seem to think that they are to be avoided so that we can have the lifestyle or standard of living that we feel is best for us.

It's amazing that pills and condoms have done more to shape the American Christian's view of children than the Bible has.

We get married because we have found our soul-mate, the person that completes us and makes us happy. We assume that the purpose of marriage is our personal happiness and satisfaction. We resent our children when they come along, especially "unexpectedly," and ruin all the fun. Sure, God calls them a blessing, but can something that interferes with your sleeping patterns, ruins your date night plans, vomits on your carpet, and eats all of your food "realistically" be considered a blessing?

In a word, yes.

Discipleship, defined as the process of following and being made more like Jesus, isn't about our comfort, our convenience, our financial well-being. Having to hold your toddler at 3:00am as he's experiencing the uncomfortable effects of the stomach flu can be a wonderful tool for the mortification of "self" interest. Looking at your child when he burps, falls down, doesn't listen the first time, or shares a toy with his sister can be an amazing peek into the way God views us in our relationship with him as our Father and we as his children. Canceling the premium cable TV package so you can buy diapers and baby food can be a lesson in self-denial and contentment.

We, as a church and as a culture, have a real problem where we base our value of people on their perceived utility to us. Babies who are found to have chromosomal abnormalities in utero are aborted because they will never have a "meaningful life." We give a dumptruck full of awards to a movie that depicts the "mercy killing" of a quadriplegic as compassionate and heroic. We wonder if it would be better to help a person with Alzheimer'sDisease to end their life rather than suffer through the horrific progression of the disease.

My aunt, uncle, and cousins have my grandmother living with them. She has Alzheimer's Disease, and it's only getting worse. To put it bluntly, she is of absolutely no use to them. She can't cook, clean, help pay the bills, or even take care of herself. They already have nine children in their household, so the don't exactly have a bunch of extra room, even with the addition that was built for Grandma. There's plenty to do around the house without having to help take care of Grandma. It is inconvenient and uncomfortable to have Grandma live with them. However, even though I don't envy their situation, I know that they are growing in their faith and character because of it.

On the big whiteboard in their dining room, they have written, "Whatever you have done for the least of these (grandma), you have done for me." They get it.

Other than being very cute, children are of little utility to us, especially for the first few years of their lives. Even still, God calls them a blessing and he uses them in a myriad of ways to make us more like his Son. We would all do well to think of our children as God does and to speak of them as he has. In fact, according to Jesus, we would do well to become more like them in our faith and dependence on our Father, for "unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matt 18:3).