Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are Kids a Blessing or a Burden? | Psalm 127.3

Episode Date: October 1, 2020

Some say that the best things in life come at the greatest cost. What are kids costing parents? Do they sometimes seem like too much to handle? Join in this discussion with https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/ (Pastor Keith Simon) and https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/molly-cover/ (Molly Cover) as cover how the Bible wants us to view kids and parenting. Interested in more content like this? Scroll down for more resources and related episodes, including our eBook https://info.thecrossingchurch.com/embracing-the-tension-between-parenting-and-other-callings?hsCtaTracking=916960ff-419a-44d6-90c6-12b4ad9b9a71%7C0b5ca5aa-8905-48c2-934b-ec769684f4c6 (Embracing the Tension Between Parenting and Other Callings), information about our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ministries/children/ (Crossing Kids ministry), and one of our first episodes on https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/how-to-be-a-better-parent-debunking-3-parenting-myths/ (How to Be a Better Parent) from our first series on https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/how-to-be-a-better-parent-debunking-3-parenting-myths/ (Redefining Love). Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TenMinuteBibleTalks.  Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. If I told you that God was going to bless you and give you a gift, how do you think you'd react? My guess is you'd be pretty pumped. I mean, a lot of our prayers as Christians center around God being good to us, God blessing us, our lives. And so to hear that God is going to give you a gift, you're thinking, wow, God is finally answering my prayers. I can't wait to see what it is.

And then what if you found out that the gift that God has given you is wait for it, a kid, a child? How do you respond to that? Well, you might think that's not exactly the kind of gift that I wanted. Molly, have you ever gotten a gift that was a little weird or something you hadn't exactly asked for? Oh, yeah, I've got a good one. When my husband and I were about to get married, it was also Christmas time. And he is not a great gift giver, nor is he somebody that thinks a lot about how somebody might receive a gift. So he took me out to dinner a week before our wedding and said, hey, I have a gift for you.

But it hasn't come yet. And I got so excited. I thought, wow, he took the time to pick something out. We're so busy planning a wedding. I can't wait to see what it is. And he said, I got you a gift. I got you a slinket. A slinket?

Do you have a slinket key? What is a slinket? It's a blanket with sleeves. so that you can watch a show with your arms in it and you can eat your snacks and drink your drinks and your arms don't have to get cold. Did you ever use it? We still have it. Did you ever use it? I don't know if I have, but he uses it a lot.

So at your wedding day, he got you a slinket. It was a week before the wedding. Not that romantic, though. Did you think maybe I should bail on this? Was this one of those moments you thought a slinket is not exactly. the gift that I wanted. It was a big letdown. I think I'm going to leave that alone. So you noticed that that is not Patrick's voice. Instead, that is a friend of mine in Patrick's Molly. Molly listens to 10-minute Bible talks.

She also works with us. And we were talking the other day and thought we would do this episode together. Keith brought this idea up that children are kind of a burdened children are an inconvenience. And that's how they're seen. And we talked about. about it for a second, moved on, subject change. And I got home that night, and I could not stop thinking about it. Maybe it's because I'm a mom myself, but I couldn't stop thinking about, man, are children a burden, our children inconvenient? Yeah, there aren't too many blessings that God gives us, not too many gifts that we think, gosh, I'd like to exchange that. Can I return that? Can I get my money back on that one? But when it comes to kids, I think that's exactly how we feel. But Psalm 127-3 is really clear.

Children are a gift from the Lord. They are a real blessing. But like Molly said, do we think of it that way? Do we believe that children are a blessing? Or do we think they're more of a burden? Before we continue our conversation, I just think we need to acknowledge what we're not talking about. So we are not talking to just parents today, nor are we talking to people that think, oh, man, I want to have kids in the next few years, or I plan to have children.

we're talking to all people, all stages of life, single people, young people, married people, older people. Because children are a part of our society, I think it's important to remember that you were once a child. You were not born an adult. You were born a baby. And there were people in your life as a child that invested in you and that sacrificed for you. Maybe it was your parents, but maybe it was extended family. Maybe it was a teacher or a coach or a mentor. But there were people that cared for you as a child that helps shape who you are today. Another thing we aren't talking about today, we're not talking about the Mommy Wars. I actually have no interest in talking about the Mommy Wars at this point in my life.

I have friends that do all sorts of things. I have friends that stay home full-time with their kids. I have friends that are kind of balancing part-time work with part-time being at home. And the best thing we can do is support each other and encourage each other and know that everyone just kind of has to figure out what parenting and motherhood looks like for themselves. Yeah, we're not suggesting that everyone should be married and have kids. We can get to that a little bit later in the episode, but right now it's just good to say that you shouldn't listen to this and feel that kind of pressure. But let's just start with some cultural trends.

Here's the fact. Fact. Americans are having fewer children and more people are choosing not to have any children. The way demographers assess birth rates is by how many children are born to women between the ages of 15 and 44. And right now, we are at the lowest birth rate in American history, 1.8 children to every woman in that age range. Now, replacement rate, so if we're just going to replace ourselves as a society, that's 2.1. So if the birth rate remains below 2.1, in other words, if it remains its current situation, our population is going to shrink. And of course, that's going to have repercussions within larger

society. Just think of Social Security, where younger people pay into a system that takes care of people who are older. Well, if there are more older people and less younger people, that system is going to be further burdened than it already is. Or think of this demographic change. People used to get married much younger than they currently do. So that up until 1980, the average age of marriage was well under 24, and now it is closer to 29. So there are ways our culture and our society is changing. But what we're not saying is that there's a certain age, the Bible tells us, when everybody's got to get married. We're not saying that the Bible even tells everyone they should be married. In fact, singleness is upheld and valued in the New Testament. And we're not saying that there's a specific number of children that everyone should have.

There is a lot of freedom and a lot of differences in our life that would allow different married couples to have different numbers of children. So this is not a discussion about that. Instead, it's a discussion about why we don't have children, why we're having fewer children than we used to. A few years ago, Time Magazine had a cover story on a child-free life, and in it, they asked this question, what happens when having it all means not having children? That's an interesting way to put it, isn't it? When having it all means not having children, because that's what I want. I want to have it all. But I guess Time Magazine is saying that if I want to have it all, at least the way it's being defined now, that means not having kids. Well, exactly. And

In a recent New York Times article, they ask young adults, why are you having fewer children than you'd like? Or why are you not having children at all? I'm not going to go through all the reasons because there are actually a lot. But some of the reasons that people are having fewer children, as a child care is too expensive, which I kind of agree with. They want more time for the children that they already have. There's no paid family leave at their current job or maybe not enough paid family leave. Some of the reasons people say they're not. having children at all is that they want more leisure time. They haven't found a partner yet. They can't afford child care, which we already touched on. And another big reason is that people can't afford a house, which I think is a huge reason right now. I have friends that are moving out of a big city to a smaller city just so they can afford a house and have children. So when you look at this list from the New York Times article, what you realize is that the top of each list is dominated by financial concerns. It's not all the concerns. It's not all the

concerns by any stretch, but it's a lot of the concerns that people have. And so it seems that people are asking the question, can I afford to have a child? Now, you might think, can I afford to take this trip? Can I afford to buy this car? Can I afford this house? Can I afford this pair of shoes, whatever it is. But I don't know that it's right to say, or at least that the question that should dominate our thinking is, can I afford to have children? No, my guess is there are situations of extreme poverty in which that might be a wise question to ask, but I'm not sure that the people doing this New York Times survey are all living below the poverty line. Now the Bible, it comes down up from a little bit of a different angle. All the way back in Genesis 1, God commands human beings

to be fruitful and to multiply. It's a command. And then in Genesis 9, after the flood, God reiterates that command. He again says, be fruitful and multiply. So I think what happens is that a lot of people, a lot of Christians, are missing this connection that God is explicitly making. And that connection is not just between sex and marriage, but between marriage and children. For a lot of married couples, having kids is much more of a lifestyle choice. Every time the subject of contraception or surrogacy or the call to have children comes up, people get fired up, especially when I talk to Christians and young Christians. I can get them to acknowledge a link between sex and marriage. But the idea that sex, marriage, and children are for the Christian a package deal is a really hard sell. Yeah, it's like the commitment to not have children stems from or flow. from a worldview that says the good life is a carefree life. But I'm not sure if we think about it biblically, that is where we'll end up. There's a book by Amy Blackstone, Child Free by Choice,

the movement redefining family and creating a new age of independence. And the reasons they find that people list for not having children are the desire for autonomy, spontaneity, freedom, and the ability to travel. Why are you laughing, Molly? Because I took all four of my children to the beach last summer, Keith, and I can tell you right now that I do not have the ability to travel. So I have another friend who says, if you take your kids with you, it's a trip,

and if you go without your kids, it's a vacation. I can confirm that statement. That is 100% true. Well, I hear this desire for autonomy, spontaneity freedom, the ability to travel, among many others in this book you cited. And I get it. if that's the life you want, then if you think that's what's going to make you happy, then kids are an obstacle to that.

The truth is that when Christine and I got married, I didn't want to have kids. I didn't really ever think about it. For some reason, at least the best I can remember, we had never really talked about having kids beforehand. Maybe we just assumed we were on the same page. Maybe we were just too dumb to know that's an issue you're supposed to talk about. But it was about four years into our marriage. And an older guy says to me, hey, do you think you're ever going to have kids?

And I was like, no, probably not. I hadn't really thought about it. And he goes, well, what do you think Christine's thinking about it? And I looked at him and I'm like, I have no idea. I don't know that we've ever talked about it. And he said, well, you might want to ask her. So I went home and asked her that night when we were both there. I like, do you want to have kids?

And she's like, yeah, I do. And I was like, well, okay, I guess we can. And all turns out, we have four kids. She's extremely fertile. And so we couldn't stop having kids after that. peers. But I get it. If you're thinking out there, I kind of like my life the way it is. I have some ambitions for my life. And I'm not sure kids fit into that, the life that I want. Then I totally get it. I've thought the same thing. Molly, do you ever see your kids more of something that gets in

the way of what you want? Yeah, just earlier this week, when I was thinking about this topic and thinking, are my children inconvenient? I realized that I didn't know where my one-year-old was. And I started looking around the house and I noticed a trail of water coming from the bathroom, which is always, always a bad thing when you have kids. And I walk in to discover that he has emptied our clean, fresh rolls of toilet paper into the toilet and just filled the toilet to the brim with actually really expensive toilet paper. Yeah, that's valuable now in the pandemic. It was highly inconvenient and a big burden to my afternoon when I was supposed to be making dinner. But the more that I think about children is an inconvenience, I realize aren't all people inconvenient? Because children are people, and I can't think of a lot of convenient people in my life.

My husband isn't always convenient. My closest friends, my community, my extended family, the important relationships in my life are not convenient. But they're definitely worthwhile. They're definitely worth investing in. And if I look at myself now compared to myself before all these relationships, I think I'm a much better person. So I think the answer is, yes, children are inconvenient, but all people are inconvenient. Yeah, it's kind of weird because it's in the inconveniences. It's in the hassles of life that we are really refined and grow.

The places where my wife or my kids or my friends or my coworkers bother me, those are usually the areas of my life that I need to grow in, not them, that I need to learn to be patient, that I need to learn to put their interests above my own, that I need to learn that the one who is the greatest is the one who is the servant, or that Jesus says, I am among you as the one who serves. And I will say I want to become like Jesus, and on my better moments, I think that's true, I do. But then I see all those people out there who, like Molly says, their inconveniences, well, those are the avenues for me to learn. to be more like Jesus. So it's not just reading the verses in the Bible, but now I get to practice them in my life. And children are a big part of that. I say to people all the time, both men and

women, that when you get married, one of the things that you lose is your freedom. Because when you're single, by and large, of course, this isn't true for everyone, but you have a lot more freedom than when you get married. But the freedom you lose when you have kids, well, that is well beyond the freedom that I lost when I got married. So if I think the autonomous, free, me-centered life is the key to a happy life, then for sure kids are going to be seen as a burden. So I was reading a story the other day about how Yale offered a class. It was back in 2018, and it was taught by a woman named Dr. Lori Santos. And the class was called Psychology and the Good Life. Turns out, it's the largest class that Yale has ever had, they were completely surprised by all the people who wanted to

take it. If I remember, it was over 1,200 students signed up for the class. So many signed up for that class that it threw the schedule of all the other classes off, and they've never offered this class again because it was so popular. And Dr. Lory Santos, the person who taught the class, said something that I thought was really interesting. Remember, this is a class about the good life. This is a class about how to be happy. And all these college students are wanting to do it because they realize that there's something missing in their life, not just in their life, but in the parents' life that they've been watching and the culture around them. So they're craving something to tell them, what is the good life? What's the happy life? And Santos said this. She said that our intuitions about

what will make us happy, like winning the lottery or getting good grades, are totally wrong. Isn't that interesting? That our intuitions about the good life are usually wrong, that the way I see it, the way I see my happiness and how my life is going to go, I'm planning for happiness, I want happiness. The truth is that as a human being, apart from God, I don't know how to find happiness. So I think a lot of us have this idea that we're going to design our life. Now, remember, that's scary because we're designing it for happiness, but we don't know how to get there. but we have this designer life and it may or may not include marriage. It may or may not include

children depending on our own preferences. And if it does include children, then we're usually looking for the perfect timing. Like we've got to have enough vacation days banked or we've got to have the right job or the right house or the right income level or all those kinds of things because we think we're in charge of our lives and we want kids on our timetable. I can totally relate to this. When my husband and I were talking about having our fourth child, we decided that it would make the most sense for me to have a baby when my oldest son was off to kindergarten. That way, I wouldn't be home with four kids by myself because, man, that would be so hard. Well, of course, you know what happens? A global pandemic hits.

And so then I'm home by myself with four children and everything's close. I can't even go anywhere. So you type it all out to when you're going to hopefully get pregnant and have this child and then. poof, there you go your great plans. And now you're home with all of them anyway, even though that's what you plan not to have happen. So I want to make sure we understand, seeing kids as a gift, seeing them as a blessing, that's not just up to each individual couple. There's a broader community involved. Definitely. I think that the church actually has a huge role in this. A church community can be a support system for a family with kids of any age. God never intended us to

do family life and parenting all by ourselves. I can speak from experience because I have had four young children with a great set of grandparents in town that really invest their time and energy and my kids. And I have grandparents that live out of town that do the same thing. Beyond that, beyond that, beyond family, we have good friends that get down on my kids' level, look them in the eye. When they come over for dinner, they spend time talking with my boys about what's important to them. And that's a big deal. That's a part of supporting children in our society.

So all parents, all moms and dads, need a support system. I think especially single parents, whether they be moms or dad, need those support systems, but not only them. Now, are there biblical reasons for married people to not want to have kids? Well, sure. I would guess so, absolutely. In 1st Corinthians 7, Paul says there are reasons for people. not want to be married. In fact, he holds singleness up as almost more valued, more esteemed

than marriage. And it's really unfortunate that sometimes the church gets that exactly backwards and thinks of singleness as somehow a second-class status. That's not biblical at all. But the principle that Paul teaches there is that a person would choose singleness, not so they can have freedom from responsibility, but so that they can have freedom for greater responsibility. responsibility. So it's not, hey, be single so that you can do your own thing. It's be single so that you can be more effective and useful in God's kingdom. So I think we could slide that principle over to having kids and say that it's probably not biblical to say that I don't want to have kids for selfish reasons. But I think it could be biblical to say that I don't think kids are best for these reasons that

allow me to be more useful in the kingdom of God. Okay, so what we hope to do is get everybody, moms and dads, of course, but also the broader church community in all of us to see children as a blessing, not a burden. And I think that call is on, again, all of us to take off the lens that says, my happiness will be found when I get to live my life the way I want, when I'm in charge and I get to do what I want when I want. As long as those are the glasses you're looking at the world from, then of course kids are going to be a burden. But if you put on the glasses of the Bible and say that the real life, the good life, the best life is found in dying to self and living for Christ, dying to your own agenda and picking up God's agenda, putting your interests

beneath other people's interests, that that's really the good life that Jesus has called us to, when you put those glasses on, everything's going to change. One of the things that will change is that you're going to see kids as a blessing and not a burden. There's that phrase that takes a village to raise a child, and it's kind of overdone and cheesy, but I also think it's true, and it's especially true in the church. The church should be that village that is raising children. Regardless of your stage of life, you have a role to play in the life of children in your church community. So all of us can think about where we get our view of happiness from. Remember what Dr. Santos said?

She said that our intuitions about what make us happy are often inaccurate. Where do I get my definition of the happy life, the good life? Do I get it from my culture, from my own sinful inclinations, or do I get it from the Bible? Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually.

If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.