Category: Spirituality

What are gifts from God? Should we desire all those gifts? Should we then desire as much of those gifts as possible? Is not desiring a particular gift, or not allowing God to give you a gift, sinning?

I love the Duggars on “19 Kids and Counting.” I can’t wait for the new season to start. I love how Michelle Duggar is always so calm, even with her 19 kids running around. Her children seem to be very smart, articulate, kind, responsible, and helpful. It was through this show that I first heard about a movement called the “Quiverfull Movement” which is taking place among many different evangelical Christian groups. Some parents are being convicted that the number of children they should have should be left up to the Lord, without any attempts on their part to limit the size of their family or space out how often their children are born via birth control or natural family planning.

Lately, I have been hearing more and more about this movement. I’ve come across several magazine articles in favor of it, and I’ve also found a web site called “No Longer Quivering” run by a woman who used to be a Quiverfull mom and seems to bear scars from those years. Therefore, this issue has been on my mind a lot lately, and I can’t quite figure out what I think of it. (I want to make it clear, though, that I don’t personally know any people who call themselves part of the “Quiverfull” group.)

The movement’s name comes from Psalm 127:3-5: “Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from Him. Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior’s hands. How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them! He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates.”  Then, of course, there is the mandate in Genesis that mankind “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28).

So much of a Christian’s journey through life is about giving up our own life and trusting the Lord to take over. It is not something we do one time, when we become a Christian, and then that’s it; personally, it is something I have to choose to do (or not do) on a daily basis. Giving up control over my own life is not an easy thing to do, especially for this independent-minded American. I look at these families that are trusting their family size to the Lord, and trusting the Lord to help provide for their larger families, and I feel they must have enormous faith to do so. Do I trust God that much? Should I?

I can think of many criticisms to this mindset. What about women with health complications during pregnancy? What about women who face multiple c-sections? What about families with special-needs children? What about families with limited incomes or small homes? What about women with a tendency towards postpartum depression? And I’m sure there are more. Should a Christian’s faith, if it is strong enough, be enough to overcome all of these complications? Is it wrong to use modern medicine (or natural family planning practices) to make informed decisions regarding fertility and childbirth? Can some people be “called” by God to have large families, while others are not? Or does the mandate to “multiply” apply to all Christian married couples? And how far does Psalm 127 apply?

I am not a confrontational person at all. I’m not trying to start a debate, but, rather, I’m just sharing something that I have been trying to make sense of for many months now. I’d appreciate (kind!) input!

My husband spends lots of time listening to preachers and speakers, sermons, videos, etc. I don’t. I am not inclined to sit in front of the computer and watch a sermon that is over an hour long…that is his thing, not mine. (On the other hand, he doesn’t read and I happily spend hours with a book.) But, Tim has shown me a few messages he felt were especially enlightening, and one that has stuck with me for months is one that Francis Chan shared. You can find the link here, if you also want to spend an hour in front of your computer watching a sermon.

Basically, the message begins with a rope illustration. The rope is white and long enough to circle the (very large) room many times over. A small portion, probably just a foot long, is colored red. The red part represents the part of our life that is spent on earth; the rope is a rough estimate of eternity. You probably already understand the illustration–our life on earth is just a tiny, tiny part of our entire existence.  I know I had heard the same message many times before, but in one of the mysterious ways the Holy Spirit works, it was through this illustration that the Spirit spoke into my heart and I have not been able to stop thinking about it since.

Life is short. What am I working for? I don’t have a career, so I can’t say I’m trying to get a promotion or a raise. (Ha!) However, certainly I am working for other goals. I am working so my kids can have a good childhood, the kind of childhood I feel is appropriate. You know, with birthday parties, ballet classes, play dates, matching dresses, hairbows, trips to museums and zoos, family vacations to Disney World while they are still young enough to believe fairies are real. I sure hope nothing is wrong with those goals, because I’m not throwing them out the window. But in light of eternity, maybe I need to add some more goals. Like reaching beyond my own family to a world that does not know Jesus. As a stay-at-home mom, I’m more isolated than most from the secular world. I’m not forced to interact with the secular world on a daily basis, like maybe I would be if I had a job or was going to school.

I’m realizing that I am going to have to be intentional about not just living my life for the “red part” of the rope. I think American Christians do not think much about eternity, probably because most of us are doing OK in the red part. But the years are passing quickly–any mom can tell you that–and eternity is waiting. Our time here in the red part doesn’t really belong to us, but to Jesus, to allow Him to use us to do His work. What does that mean for me? Where will he take me? What will my life look like if I give up my own goals and let Him decide what the goals will be?

…Everything we need for the next year, Lord. (Or 10 years, or 20…)

If you grew up in a church, you probably learned to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” But I find that most of my prayers, when I am asking God for help in a material way, are not about today. They are about what’s coming up. What’s down the road. “Lord, help us find a way to pay the hospital co-pay when the baby is born.” “Lord, help us find a way to send all these kids to college in 15 years.” “Lord, help us find a way to…” When I am worried about not having enough…it is not having enough in the future that I am worried about.  I’ve never gone without food or without a roof over my head. Yet I worry about what tomorrow will bring, or next week, or next year? What does that say about my trust in the Lord, who has always provided for me thus far?

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.” Matthew 6:34. Now there’s a verse I need someone to repeat to me every day!