The Importance of How We Speak About Children

Any of you who have more than three (and sometimes more than two) children, have been met with a variety of responses from other people. Some responses are positive and encouraging; some are not. Some are spoken without any thought, and therefore it is easy to “let it go”. But overall, I believe the responses, said in a joking manner or not, reveal our heart toward the issue of children. 

As I have stated before, I’m not out to rid the world of all birth-control users. I simply want to make Christians aware of their false thinking toward children. (We expect an anti-child philosophy from the world…but Christians have biblical teaching otherwise.)

For example: If I were to walk up to someone at Wal-Mart (that’s where we get the most comments!) and say, “guess what…I just inherited 3 millions dollars from my grandfather’s estate. Can you believe it?” And then someone answered me and said, “Oh, bless your heart!” What does that mean? Does that mean they are happy for me, and recognize that my inheritance is a blessing, a good thing? Or what if they answered me and said, “Whew…I’m glad it’s you and not me”. Of course no one would ever say those things, because everyone agrees that money is something to be desired. (And isn’t it interesting, that in the Bible, money is often referred to as a curse, but children are always a blessing.) We are so backwards! 

In light of that illustration, it is clear that many people do not believe that children are something to be desired. Those comments express an aversion to children as something to be avoided. We (speaking generally) believe children are a curse! God believes children are a blessing. But if we bear the name of Christ, shouldn’t we desire to have His heart toward everything????

This is the reason that negative comments from believers upset me so much. It’s not that you have chosen to limit your family size that bothers me; it’s that you have completely ignored the teaching of Scripture concerning children, and persecute those of us who share God’s heart toward them. My heart is crushed each time a child of God speaks of my children as curses (especially when they comment in front of them). I stand there thinking, “do you even know what the Scripture says about children? Or is it that you don’t care?” Have we decided that it’s OK to adopt our own belief system, while treating the Holy Word as an outdated, inapplicable book? If God says “children are a gift from the Lord…the fruit of the womb is His REWARD”, shouldn’t we be echoing that to each other?

It is my belief that when a Christian shares the world’s philosophy about children (that they are anything but a blessing), he stands in serious danger of disobeying the Scripture’s mandate to “be in the world but not of the world”. Show me from Scripture, where a believer has the authority to respond to the mother of many children with anti-children remarks?

Let’s renew our minds! If we encounter a mother with a large family, we should be thrilled! Because as brothers and sisters in Christ, we should see those little children as arrows for the Kingdom. They are on “our side”! Let’s encourage her! Let’s rally behind her as she devotes her life to training up these people to love the Lord! (Just as we encourage those in ministry, who are missionaries, etc.)

It’s so interesting (and tragic) to think how Satan works: he has somehow taken what is natural and normal, turned it completely around and made it odd and peculiar. Think of it! 

(Inevitably, someone will write in and ask about the indigent mothers who are having lots of children and abusing them…that subject is a different one entirely, and not related to this one.)