In response to a radio program I did on the blessings of having children, I received a letter from a listener, who said he believed it is “a very inopportune time to have children.”
Lamenting the difficulties families have competing against “cultural indoctrination that is hammered into the tender minds of children,” this correspondent foresees an era in which “children will be taken away from Christian parents because of the ‘narrow-minded’ ideas that they teach them.” He asks, “Who in their right minds would want to have children through all this?”
Castigating the culture for its “anti-Christian worldview and nihilism,” the correspondent concluded, “My wife and I have thought about it and may never have children, and the good thing about it is that we will have more time to serve God.”
To this I replied:
“Followers of the Lord Jesus face persecutions and sufferings. They always have. Jesus promised it. At the same time, he loves the children and receives them, as his Father does from the beginning of the creation, as a blessing.
“When the Israelites are in bondage to Pharaoh, God sees their children as a blessing. It is Pharaoh who seest them as a curse. When the people of God are under persecution from Babylon, Assyria, Rome, and in every other way, God always pronounces children as a blessing; barrenness as tragic.”
“I will agree with you though on this one thing. The nihilistic. anti-Christian worldview is indeed pervasive. It is, in fact, more pervasive than you may think; you have embraced it.
“I hope you will find the blessings of life, of parenthood, of hope.”
