Just Imagine If They Had Not Been Born

One of the things that most profoundly affects me about the idea of letting God be sovereign in the area of children, is the idea of who I may be preventing from being born, and how God has used the people of history to so powerfully impact the world. It’s just another area where we can’t see the future; and because of that, it seems scary to interfere with the population.

I love to ponder the lives of great men and women of history who probably would never have been born if their parents were living in our day. If one or two children was all those parents needed, or all they could handle, or afford, or deal with, etc., our world would be an entirely different place. Consider the following and rejoice that birth control was not a popular concept of the day:

Presidents:

• George Washington——-5th child of ten.
• William Henry Harrison–7th of seven.
• Franklin Pierce————-7th of eight.
• Benjamin Harrison———5th of thirteen.
• William Howard Taft——-7th of ten.

(There are many more–I just skipped them for time. By the way, I could list about 18 more presidents who came from large families which refutes the crazy idea that being from a large family hinders your education. Some of the most brilliant men of history were from large, often very poor families.)

Musicians

• Johann Sebastian Bach–8th child
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart–7th of seven
• Ludwig Van Beethoven–5th child of five (Note: Beethoven would have most definitely never been born in this day. His father had syphilis and his mother had tuberculosis. Their 1st child was blind, baby #2 died, 3rd born was deaf, and the 4th child had tuberculosis like his mother! Then came Beethoven!)
• Czech Bedrich Smetana–11th of 18
• Many many, more, but one of my current favorites: Celine Dion is the baby of 14!

Christian Saints:

• David Brainerd–from a family of nine children
• Oswald Chambers–4th of nine
• Jonathan Edwards–11th of eleven
• Sylvanus Crosby (grandfather of Fanny Crosby)–19th of 19! (Chew on that one for a minute…)
• Dwight L. Moody–6th of eight
• Nate Saint–7th of eight
• Corrie ten Boom–5th

And I could list dozens more in every category. We didn’t even touch scientists, doctors, and just godly men and women who have given birth to other godly men and women! Let us not forget the infamous Suzanna Wesley. Her sons Charles and John Wesley had and continue to have a tremendous impact on the church and our music. John was number 14, and Charles was number 17 of 19 children. And what makes that even more amazing, is that Suzanna herself was number 24!!! And lest we ever use “hardship” as an excuse to stop having children, she had more than a thousand of us put together!

Could it be, that parents of that day simply were not as selfish as we are, willing to give themselves over to the raising up of strong, godly men and women, no matter the cost?

It is so exciting to see how God so infinitely uses the arrows of godly people to impact history. We can’t know how he is going to use one of our children. More than likely, He’ll just use them to raise up more children and impact more people for His Kingdom–what great honor! Imagine what our world might be like right now, if the people of God understood this full quiver thing!