The power of God

Yesterday I wrote about creation. I called it In the beginning. Every time I think about the beginning…the true beginning…I am simply amazed. There was nothing but God…and then there was everything as we know it.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1:1

But how?

How did He create the heavens? How did he create the earth? How was there everything? It came through Christ but…

How?

Genesis 1 goes on to tell us what the earth was like…

 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep…

It was formless…it had no shape. Darkness was over the surface of the deep…There was total darkness. I can only guess that this must have been a darkness unlike any we have ever known.

When we’re in total darkness there is still light. A few years ago I visited an underground cavern in Florida. My family, along with a number of other people we didn’t know, descended into a cave with a guide to see some of the wonders of God’s creation. While we were down there the guide calmly tells us what it was like for the people that discovered the cave. She then told us she was going to turn off all the lights so we could see what it was like for those people. When she flipped that switch there was darkness. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. We stood there, afraid to move a single inch because there were drop offs, sharp rocks, other people, all kinds of hazards that we couldn’t see.

Even that darkness, so thick, so obliterating, probably wasn’t as dark as it was in the beginning. Because in the beginning…at that point…light hadn’t yet been created. Down in that cavern there could have been someone wearing shoes that had lights in them, someone might have had on something that glowed in the dark. I don’t remember seeing anything like that but it could have been there. And if there wasn’t maybe some small amount of light found it’s way down the tunnel we had come through, not enough for us to see it not enough for us to know it was there, but maybe it was enough to make the darkness just a little less…dark.

Because light did exist.

But in the beginning there was darkness.

No light.

And in that dark…

…the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.

 So there was darkness and there was the spirit of God. On this formless earth there was God and darkness. Nothing else.

Can you imagine God standing in total darkness with a formless earth spread out around Him. I can’t. My human mind can’t fully grasp that.

So here we have God and He’s hovering over this formless earth. And there’s nothing else. Just God’s Spirit and darkness.

 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. Genesis 1:3

Boom. Just like that. Here there was total darkness. Complete and utter blackness. Then God spoke and light existed.  With His voice…He made light.

Did He yell into the darkness? Did His voice boom across the heavens?  Did it thunder over the formless earth? Or did He whisper?

Whatever He did…He spoke light into existence.  Where there was darkness now there was light.

But where was it? Was it all mixed in with the darkness, swirled together like some kind of tie dyed effect? Was light on the right and darkness on the left? We don’t know. Scripture doesn’t tell us where the light was. It doesn’t tell us how it mixed with the darkness. It just says He said let there be light and there was light.

Can you imagine the dazzling brightness of light appearing in total brightness? Years ago, back when I watched secular movies, they put a new movie theater in the town over from the one I lived in. That movie theater kept their interior dark. You could see in the hallways and in the main areas but only the bathrooms were well lit all the rest had very dim lighting. When you stepped outside after watching a movie you were blinded with light. The difference in the lighting inside and the sunlight outside was so much that you literally could not see. The bright light appeared as soon as you opened the exit door, which was at the end of a very dim hallway, and with the first step outside you could see nothing.

That first light, brought into the world with God’s voice, at His command, must have been so much brighter, so much more blinding. In total darkness light must have been brilliantly bright.

And there it was all mixed in with the darkness. Until…

 ⁴ God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

What power it must have taken to speak light into darkness. With a few words. Then He separated that mixed up light and darkness. Scripture doesn’t tell us how He did that. It doesn’t say He waved His hand and light and darkness were separate. It doesn’t say He told the darkness to go here and the light to go there. It just says He separated it.

Imagine…being in a dark room and lighting a candle or using a flashlight... Now separate the light from the dark. Wave your hand and try to make the light go into one place. Push the darkness into a corner. It can’t be done. All you’d succeed in doing is fanning the air. You can move your source of light, change where the light sits in the dark room but we can’t separate the two.

God could.

God did. And then He named them.

God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

That was it. He created the heavens and the earth. He spoke light into being. He separated the light from the darkness and made days and nights, mornings and evenings. No big deal. Out of Him came the earth, the heavens, day and night. Because with His power, a power so big that His voice created, He made those things.

Then if that wasn’t powerful enough He moved into day two. And again He spoke…

⁶ Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” ⁷ God made expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. ⁸ God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

With His voice He once again created…this time He made expanse.

What is expanse? Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as…

: a large and usually flat open space or area

It was a flat open space. He put an expanse between the waters.

“Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters… Just like that He created Heaven. With His voice. Now there were two different bodies of water. One above Heaven, one below. The waters were separated…because He spoke.

But He didn’t stop there. That powerful voice took up the next day. He picked up where he left off the next day.

⁹ Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.

With His voice He created land. With words He made dirt and sand, clay and all all the other soils that make up earth. Let there be…and there was. Just like that.

If creating light with His voice didn’t show us how powerful He is, if creating Heaven with His voice didn’t show us, now He’s created land with nothing more than His words.

Who can make anything with their words? What speech can create something from nothing? Man does not hold that power. Our words can affirm, they can wound, they can heal, they can communicate but they can’t create.

But God’s can.

Let there be…and there was. Just that simple.

And then He did it again in the same day.

 ¹⁰ God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. ¹¹ Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so. ¹² The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. ¹³ There was evening and there was morning, a third day.

Then God said…and there was all plant life on earth.

Have you ever grown a garden? I have. I’ve had a garden that took up my whole back yard. Some of it was started with little plants I bought, some of it from seeds we planted. Regardless of how those plants got started they took care and work, tending, watering, weeding, pruning. I didn’t simply tell the plants to grow and left them alone. I wasn’t able to tell them to bear fruit and sit back and wait for it to happen.

But God did. He spoke all plant life into existence and placed within them all that they needed to grow and produce, to live, to reproduce. He spoke and they were…for all of time. His voice created everything in the plant kingdom that would keep them going for all time.

Just like that. Boom. Let there be…and there was. That’s pretty powerful to me.

Day after day he exhibited that power. Over and over. With His voice He created. When He finished making all plant life He picked up where He left off the next day. Again He went back to His project. He left nothing undone. There was nothing He didn’t think of.

¹⁴ Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; ¹⁵ and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. ¹⁶ God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. ¹⁷ God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

With His voice He spoke the sun, moon and stars into existence. I have sat out under the stars many a time and just looked at them. I could care less about the constellations people claim to see in them. I don’t care about their location or what they’re made of. I don’t need a telescope to see them closer. I simply like to marvel that they are.

…The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Psalm 19:1

It simply amazes me to look up at the vast expanse of sky and see the stars dotting it. God spoke stars into existence so that man could have light to see. So that we can see His handiwork. He put them there for us.

And then He continued with His creation.

²⁰ Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.” ²¹ God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” ²³ There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

He could have left the land free of animal life but He didn’t. He said…and there were animals on the land, in the waters, and in the air. He filled the earth with animals with His voice. If creating land, the sun, the moon, the stars, and plants with His voice wasn’t enough He made animals. So complex, so profound, that they have different functions, different purposes. Some are very smart, some we wonder if they can think. He placed some here to nourish the people He would soon make, He placed some here to eat other animals, He even gave some the ability to do things for people that people can’t do for themselves.

Long before the first service animal was used to help man, God put in them the ability to do just that.

And He did it with His voice.

Talk about power.

Animals took more work though. He didn’t stop at making them. He went back the next day and worked on them some more.

²⁴ Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. ²⁵ God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good.

And then…

²⁶ Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” ²⁷ God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

After all that work God created man. Man which was the reason for everything else. He created man and gave Him rule over all the earth. 

I’ve brought life into this world. Felt those babies move as they grew inside me. There’s something miraculous about growing another life inside you but it’s a miracle of the Lord’s making. I’m simply the vessel He used to get that child into the world. There’s no power involved. There’s no…I think I’ll have a baby and so one begins to grow. It takes the work of the Lord to make that baby grow.

Even if I choose to have a baby, even if I go to great lengths to make it happen…even then it will only happen if the Lord desires it to be so. It’s His will that lets that child come into existence, it’s His power that creates the miracle that becomes the child I brought into the world. It’s the Lord’s doing. I was only the vessel He used to make His plan come to fruition.

But there…in the beginning… Then God said, “Let Us make man… God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Just like that. He created them. With His power. They weren’t there…and then they were.

If that’s not power I don’t know what is.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. ⁴ In Him was life…John 1:1-4

In those verses how the beginning came to be, how everything came to be is summed up. They came through Christ. Without Him there would be nothing. And they came through His power. Through His voice.

He spoke and there was.

I understand that there are ‘Christians’ that don’t believe in Genesis. Here is the basis for how all of life began. And there are people that claim to be Christians that don’t believe those beginnings.

…The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Psalm 19:1

I can’t help wondering what people that deny the truth of Genesis see when they look at the heavens. What do they see when they look at the sky, at His handiwork? I simply marvel at even the smallest thing in nature because God created it and it amazes me to think of how He took nothing and made whatever it is I happen to be looking at. Even a speck of dirt…was His handiwork. And it serves a purpose.

There was nothing and with His all powerful voice God spoke the world into being.

How can anyone deny His power?

 

 

 

In the beginning

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Genesis 1:1

 

In the beginning…

What exactly was ‘the beginning?’ We know what beginning means. It’s to start. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as…

the point or time at which something begins : a starting point

: the first part of something

beginnings : an early stage or period

The beginning…the starting point.

Can our human minds even begin to comprehend what the beginning of all things was? The beginning of life starts at conception. First there wasn’t a baby, then there was.

Only…there was before that baby was conceived. There was a sperm. There was an egg. There was two halves of that child that just hadn’t joined together yet. And before that…there was mom and dad, there was grandma and grandpa, there was everything. Earth, sky, air, people, plants, animals….everything. The beginning of that baby started at conception but there were begginings that took place before conception so that that baby could be conceived.

But ‘in the beginning’ there was nothing. Nothing.

Nothing is…nothing.

Not a thing.

If there’s nothing then there isn’t anything. If there wasn’t anything in the beginning than what was there? If I cup my hands together and hold nothing in them, they’re empty. We can imagine that was what God did. There in His hands was nothing. Not a thing. But when I hold nothing in my hands…I hold air. I hold light.

I may think I’m holding nothing but really I’m holding something. If I cup my hands and hold nothing in total darkness, I still hold air in my hands. I may not be able to feel it. I may not be able to see it. But it’s still there. While I hold nothing…I will always hold air.

God did not.

He held nothing.

If a true beginning is hard for the human mind to grasp…absolute nothing is even harder. There truly was nothing there. No air, no light, no…anything.

First there was nothing…then there was the heavens and the earth. From nothing our wonderful, and all powerful, God created everything.

And everything He did create.

Have you ever walked deep into the woods, so far in that you can’t see anything man made? There are no telephone poles, no high lines, no roads. When you get that deep into the woods there is nothing but creation. That deep in you find trees, grass, leaves, bugs, bushes, animals, air, water…creation.

There far from any man made thing, beyond what you may be wearing or carrying, is creation. What did it take to form a tree from nothing? A cloud? That pond of water? A butterfly?

The list is unending. Everything in creation was once created…made when there was nothing. And our Lord thought of everything. Trees seem to simply stand there doing little but providing shade and dropping leaves and seeds on us once a year and yet…they clean the air, they filter toxins, they make air, they keep the soil in place, they provide shade-so they cool us, some of them provide food. So this seemingly decorative tree…the same one we may pass day after day without giving thought to…is cooling us, giving us air so we can breathe, and it may be feeding us.

But it’s a tree!

Yes…and a pretty remarkable tree too. If you look into how a tree works it’s pretty miraculous. To think that this seemingly decorative thing has all these functions, has a vein system that carries food throughout its ‘body’…is astounding.

What had to go into making a tree? I can’t begin to do it. And to make a tree from nothing...Wow.

In the beginning there was nothing and then there was everything.

From nothing came everything. Everything we see, everything we touch, everything we are. Before everything there was nothing.

Only God.

Only Christ.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ^2 [a]He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. ⁴ In Him was life…John 1:1-4

In the beginning…there was the word…there was Christ. Because of Him all things were made. Not only because of Him but through Him.

If something is done through someone…it took that person to make it happen. My children came into this world through me. Without me they couldn’t have been born. I had to grow them in my body so that they could get to the point where they could live on their own. They came through me.

All things were made through Christ. Apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. There was nothing made without Christ.

Because…In Him was life.

Life.

It was in Christ. It all came into being through Him.

Christ was life. It was in Him. When there was nothing…there was life. When there was nothing…there was Christ.

Through Him was created all things. So there…in the beginning…in that vast expanse of nothingness…there was Christ. And because there was Christ…there was life. He was life. All things came into being through Him. If life was in Him, and all things were created or made through him…then He is life. He is the life that gave life to everything.

In the beginning…

There was Christ.

Everything else was created through him. Everything else came because of him. The heavens and the earth were created through and because of Christ. Plants and animals, air and water were created…made…brought into existence…because of Christ. It was done through Him. He is the reason all those things were made.

And He is the reason human life was made. Through Him people were made.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. ⁴ In Him was life…John 1:1-4

What if that verse read…

In the beginning was Christ….and Christ was God.  People came into being through Him, and apart from Him no person came into being…In Him was life

It doesn’t read that way but when it says all things, people are included in that. People were a part of all the things that came into being. Adam and Eve were part of creation.

And all things came through Christ.

In Him was life.

In the beginning…

There was Christ.

 

 

 

 

How do we know that God is real?

“How do we know that God is real?”

My nine year old daughter asked me that question not all that long ago. I was driving on the highway with her in the backseat when without warning she asked me a question that truly stumped me. It was like my brain froze at having to give the answer.

Not because I didn’t know the answer. I did. I do. But…how do you explain to someone else how they can know that God is real? There are Scripture verses that tell us He’s real...but…when a person is asking how they can know that God is real…does it help to point them to the Bible?

In my daughters case I could do that, she has a basic belief in God and Christ, but what if it were someone that denied the existence of God? If someone said they didn’t believe in God at all then asked how to know that He’s real…what could we tell them?

Even knowing my daughter believes in God didn’t help me answer her. I don’t remember what I told her but somehow I must have stumbled through a good enough explanation to satisfy her.

But the question has lingered in my mind. How do we tell someone how they can know that God is real?

After answering my daughter the best I could I completed my trip and upon my arrival home I told my husband I needed him to talk to her. He’s much better at explaining and teaching Scriptural things than I am. When I told him what she’d asked he was kind of stumped too. He gave me a very good answer, one that went straight to Scripture, but he came to the same problem I had…those aren’t the kind of answers you can give to a child. And it wasn’t the answer you could give to someone that didn’t already believe in God, that didn’t believe the Bible is the Word of God.

So…what can you tell a person that doesn’t even profess a belief in God to answer the question…’how can we know God is real?’

I still don’t know.

That question has lingered in me for the last few weeks. It’s cropped up in my mind from time to time. It’s made me question myself.

How can we know that God is real?

I know He’s real because I feel His presence in my soul. I know He’s real because everything in the natural world shows me that He is. I know He’s real because the Bible tells me He is.

That’s great…for me. But what about that person that is asking that question? The person that truly seeking to know if God is real?

I can lead them to Scripture. I can show them that the Bible teaches that we all know intuitively that God exists, that’s there’s something in us that tells us He’s real even when human minds deny Him.  I can show them verses like…

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Rom. 1:20).

That verse teaches that God’s power and divine nature have been clearly seen since the creation of the world. God can be seen because of his creation. Somewhere deep in every person’s being they sense that God exists. Their soul knows what their minds may not acknowledge. They know because God built that knowledge into them. We are His creation and something in us knows it whether or not the person in question chooses to admit and acknowledge it.

They can deny God all they want but their soul knows He’s real. They can believe in evolution all they want but somewhere in them they know that God exists because His creation tells them He does.

…The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Psalm 19:1

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you.  Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? Job 12:7-9

But if the person asking how to know that God is real doesn’t believe the Bible is the word of God showing them Scripture verses isn’t going to prove anything to them.

If a person is in complete denial of God’s existence then how can you show them He does exist? You can’t introduce them to Christ, you can’t tell them the Truth’s that are in Scripture, you can’t tell them Christ is real because I feel him in me.

They lack a basic faith. They deny what their soul knows to be true.

Thankfully I wasn’t up against that with my daughter. She has a basic belief in Christ. She knows that God is real. Where the question came from I don’t know but she was mainly asking for confirmation. A simple question…how do we know He’s real? And she wanted a simple answer…we know He’s real because the Bible tells us He is…or whatever answer I managed to give her through my slightly panicking mind.

She was satisfied.

But I wasn’t. The question stuck with me, niggled at me, bothered me. Not constantly but it would pop up from time to time. And with it came a bigger question…Did I answer her good enough?

That was a big question. It was huge. It was major. Her little girl mind was simply asking for confirmation of what she’s been taught to believe in her whole life. But it was a question that had the potential to affect her faith. We never know what may be the single thing that plants the seed that will grow into true saving faith.

Was my answer enough?

Today I decided to give her a better answer. I asked her to go for a walk with me. While we were walking I reminded her of the question. Her immediate reply was that she was thinking about that yesterday. I gave her a chance to explain what she’d been thinking about then I tried hard to explain the unexplainable.

I told her of the verses in the Bible that tell us God is real, that our souls know He is even if our minds can’t or won’t grasp it.

And then I took her to the creation. We watched clouds. We examined sand and clay soils. We looked at pebbles. We walked through the woods and talked about trees and how they grow. We stopped and looked at flowers.

We explored creation.

And while we explored we discussed whether or not anything we were seeing could have just happened.

Did I answer her question this time? I don’t know. I answered her the best way I know how and still I know I failed at answering her. I told her we have to believe God exists on faith, that without faith nothing will prove that He is real. Even with all the things I told her, all the things we explored and talked about…even then I know I failed in answering her original question.

Because it is a question that can’t be answered unless the person already believes. For my daughter…she has that basic belief. So I could show her all that, tell her How the world and everything in it was created. I could tell her that life doesn’t just happen. And she believed. She understood. But she only believed because she already had a basic faith.

Even still I’m left wondering…

How do we answer the question…How do we know that God is real?

 

 

 

 

 

It just fits

There are some things that just fit when you try them on. You can walk into a shoe store and try on a hundred different pair of shoes and none of them feel right or you can pick up the first pair you come to, slide your feet into them, and feel as if they were made just for you.

Yesterday I went to the thrift store. I was there because my daughter needed shorts and my husband needed work pants. But while I was there I looked at other things too. One of the things I looked at was there book section. I do that just about every time I’m in that store. 99.9% of the time I don’t buy a single book but I look. Yesterday I spotted an old Bible on the shelf.

Old Bibles fascinate me for some reason. There are certain versions of the Bible, written long ago, that hold more interest for me than others, but just the fact that a Bible is old holds a certain kind of interest for me.

When I saw that Bible I immediately picked it up. Beyond the fact that it was a Bible there was nothing particularly special about this Bible. It wasn’t one of those super old family Bibles. It wasn’t a version that is hard to find. It was quite simply…a Bible.

Someone had written a date on the inside. It was from the 1940’s. So the age wasn’t even what I would consider extremely old. It was a Bible. A King James Bible. It had no pictures, no commentary. I don’t think it even had maps in it.

But when I picked it up…

It just fit.

It lay in my hands like it had been made to be there. When I opened it, it was like holding an old friend even though I had never touched that particular Bible before. To my surprise it had quite a number of notes written on the blank pages inside both the front and back covers.

Now I don’t get excited over a whole lot of things. I may be happy, I’m usually content but true excitement is something I feel very rarely. But yesterday I began to feel excited. Because this Bible had…

Notes in it.

Written in ink by the previous owner.

It was well used, well loved. The pages were coming out. One page was completely out and folded in half, tucked inside. As I flipped through the pages looking for any notes my budding excitement faded and drifted away. There were no notes on any of the pages, a few underlined passages but no notes.

You see…to me…one of the greatest treasures I could ever get would be a Bible filled with notes that someone else had written in the margins. Because that would be a treasure to me, even if the person that wrote the notes didn’t see Scripture the way I do, I took notes in a New Testament not all that long ago, filled the pages with my thoughts and notes, and sent it to a friend.

When I first saw those notes in the front of that Bible I had hopes that it would have notes throughout the Scriptures but it didn’t. Still…there was something about that Bible that made it just fit in my hands. It was a pleasure to simply stand there and hold it.

Because it fit.

It could have been made for my hands.

I have discovered that there are other things in life that just fit.

Things that feel like they were just made for me. Or me for them.

Marriage is one of those things. I find that being married, being a wife, brings with it a sense of completeness, a rightness, that just fits. I don’t have to try and make it work, don’t have to struggle to fit into the role.

It is as if I was made to be a wife.

There is something that is just right about being a wife that was never there when I wasn’t married.

It makes me happy.

It satisfies me.

It fulfills me.

It completes me.

Because…

It just fits.

We were created...

I read something recently that I found both alarming and not the least surprising at the same time. It’s surprising because I can’t imagine how anyone could feel the way the women in that news article apparently do. But it isn’t surprising at all because the thoughts of these women seem to be a reflection of American life in general.

Apparently women in America are choosing not to have children at higher numbers than ever before. The article I read cited the US Census Bureau and labeled anyone between the ages of 15 and 50 as a woman. The article said that according to the census bureau nearly 50 percent of women aged 25-29 were childless in 2014. It also said that 47.6% of women aged 15-44 were childless in 2014.

 

Apparently a good part of the reasoning behind women not having children has to do with delaying getting married and having children so they can focus on their careers and the economy. I’ve heard both reasoning’s personally over the years. I’ve heard women say they’d have children ‘someday’ when their career was established or when they saved enough money, or they made enough money, or they had a big enough house, etc. All my life my mother used to say ‘don’t ever wait to have a baby until you have enough money because you’ll never have one if you do. You’ll never have enough money.’

 

That was something I heard her say from the time I was little bitty and it was something that stuck with me all these years. I’ve never let money be a determining factor in having children. If the Lord gives us a child, He’ll give us the means to take care of it.

 

The article quoted a couple of women’s reasons for not having children, giving their names and a little bit of their story. The thing is the reasons these women gave for not having children had very little to do with wanting to be able to provide better for the child and a whole lot to do with what sounded like selfish reasons to me.  One woman said she wanted to be able to take risks and move. A psychologist is quoted as saying that she sees this in her practice more and more. That men and women are making the choice as to whether or not to have kids the same way they make any other choice. She said that many of her patients have other ‘aspirations’ than having children.

Can I point out that these people with these ‘aspirations’ that don’t include children are…seeing a psychologist?  Something must not be going right in their lives for them to be seeking that sort of help.

The same psychologist also says that it’s ‘totally acceptable’ to not have children.

And she’s right. But then just about everything these days is totally acceptable. In our anything goes society there is very little that is seen as unacceptable.

As I read the article I couldn’t help but think back over my own life. How I spent hours and hours and hours as a child playing with dolls, pretending that they were real and I was ther mother. My mom tells me that when I was a year old if she took me anywhere without a doll that I would cry until we either got back home again or until I had a doll in my arms.

Where we lived while I was growing up there were no toy stores. No big super center stores that sold everything. I didn’t get my love of dolls by being inundated with aisles of dolls that did everything but get up and do the dishes. As I got older I did eventually become influenced by TV commercials and friends but my love of dolls….of babies…started long before that ever happened.

When I was six my teenaged aunt had a baby that I was allowed to hold. She would let me hold the newborn baby unsupervised while refusing to let my older cousin hold the baby. I don’t remember why my cousin couldn’t hold the baby, there may have been a very good reason, I only remember that she couldn’t. And that this cousin used to tell me how she was never allowed to hold the baby. When I handed the baby to my older cousin…as soon as my aunt came through the room (yes, I had the baby without supervision) she immediately told my cousin to give the baby back to me. There have been people I didn’t want holding my babies and I had a reason for it every time so maybe that was the case here. I don’t know. What I do know was that even at the age of six I loved babies and could, apparently, be trusted with even newborns without an adult being present.

When I was 8 we went to visit a couple that had a not yet one year old baby. I was allowed to not only take this baby outside but to go roaming all over a mountain with her.

When I was 10 and 11 I imagined what life would be like when I had a baby. Many times I imagined what I would do with one if I had it in whatever situation I was in at the time.

Being a mother was simply something that was a part of me pretty much from birth. It wasn’t something I chose, wasn’t something I contemplated, thought about, decided on. I was born with the desire to be a mother. I didn’t choose it, it was just there.

When I was 16 I became yet another cousins mother. She wasn’t mine, but because I was allowed to have her pretty much 24/7 she became mine. I loved her as if she was mine. I worked and provided for her as if she was mine. She was a one week old, five pound bundle of baby when she was handed over to me the first time. And I was terrified. I’d never been responsible for a newborn before. And she was so tiny.

But in that terror there was also fulfillment. And love. I wanted her. While I juggled school and work…I wanted her. While I stayed up nights, set with her in the hospital, changed diapers, made bottles, did homework with her in my arms…I wanted her.

It made no difference to me that she wasn’t mine by birth. She was mine by love and that was all that mattered.

Years later when I had my first child, I had been through the pain of losing a child I loved as my own, I knew a new kind of fulfillment. This one I could keep. This one truly was mine. And I was happy. Over the years as I’ve had more children the sense of fulfillment, the completeness, has grown.

I’m not saying I haven’t been fulfilled or completed through other things. I have. But the things that fulfill me are the kind of things that people that choose whether or not to have children probably would say aren’t where I should be looking for fulfillment.

Marriage fulfills me. There is a sense of completeness simply in being married. It’s like it’s what I was made for. Marriage and motherhood are the two most fulfilling roles I’ve ever had. Without either one of those roles there would be something missing in my life, in me.

Could there be a reason for that?

Could it be that Scripture explains it well?

Genesis 1:27 says …male and female he created them.

That has nothing to do with motherhood but it does define the very basics of who and what each and every person on earth is. We are either male or female. Man or woman. Boy or girl. Whether we are male or female affects the very nature of who we are. It is what we were made for, what we were created for.

The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ Genesis 2:18

Again…this verse isn’t about motherhood but it does define the role of a woman. She is to be the helper for man. Not just any man but for her husband. Our society today does not want to acknowledge that women are here to support and help their husbands. There is so much on husbands and wives being equal, on women having as great a role as men, that most people, even ‘Christians’ don’t want to acknowledge that women were quite simply created for the purpose of being a helper to their husband.

Being a wife, being created to help her husband doesn’t get us into motherhood except that one should, and often does, go hand in hand with the other. Once upon a time marriage meant babies. Husbands meant wives became mothers.

There was no choosing. No deciding if a person, be it a man or a woman, wanted to have children. If a couple got married they more often than not became parents. Families weren’t limited to the American idea of the perfect family size of two parents and two children. No one thought of the idea that a couple should only have enough children to replace themselves when they die. If any thought was given to childbearing most likely it was taken from Scripture…

 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.” Genesis 9:7

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:28

Times were different back then, people were different, the world was different. But was God different? Did His purpose for women change because the earth’s population reached a certain number? Did His plan for woman change because it became acceptable for women to work outside the home? Did His design for the family change because people changed the way they saw the family?

I’m not getting into the often debated birth control. I’m not saying whether it’s right or wrong. I’m simply pointing out the design for woman that started with the beginning of time. Eve wasn’t placed into the Garden of Eden and left to wander around deciding if she would become a wife or if she would live on her own, provide for herself, and remain childless. She was presented to Adam, given to him to be his helper, his wife.

In Genesis 1:28 it starts out And God blessed them. Why? Because as verse 27 says they were ‘male and female’, because as verse 28 goes on to say they were to be ‘fruitful and multiply’. These weren’t curses. They weren’t punishments. They were blessings. Being made a man wasn’t a curse. Being made a woman wasn’t a curse. It was a blessing. The roles given to each weren’t something to try and get away from, to be avoided. They were a blessing because they defined who each one was. Being fruitful and multiplying wasn’t a curse, it wasn’t something to look at as a hinderance to the life you wanted. Quite simply it was the life they were designed for. It was the first requirement God put on Adam and Eve. They were to have children, to fill the earth and subdue it.

God made a helper for Adam, presented her to him, and told them to have children and take control over all the earth and everything on it. There was no choice in that. He didn’t ask them if they’d rather have children or if they’d rather go about their business thinking only of themselves and the things they wanted. He told them to have children.

And God blessed them.

Scripture goes on to give certain roles to each gender. There are roles assigned to wives, to husbands. There are instructions given to parents, to mothers, to fathers. Verse after verse throughout Scripture gives instructions to families, gives them roles, tells them who they are to be, how they are to act.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, ⁴ and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, ⁵ to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled Titus 2:3-5

Women…train the young women to love their husbands and children...

How can a woman train, or teach, another woman to love her husband and children unless she herself has loved her husband and children? I can’t teach someone how to build a house because I’ve never built one nor can I teach them how to repair a motor in a vehicle. Those are things I’ve never done. Because I’ve never done them I can’t teach those skills to someone else. Before I could teach them to someone I would first have to learn them, would have to do them often enough to know how so that I could teach someone else.

That same set of verses goes on to say that women are working at home. If we’re working at home…are we chasing careers? Are we putting a job above our family? Do we even have an outside job? We can’t work at home if we’re working in the world.

There are people that would argue that. People that would say you can work at home and in the work place. Maybe you can but our own society defines women one of two ways…you’re either a homemaker or you have a job description. Every form you ever fill out that asks for your type of employment gets one or the other. If you’re a teacher in the public school system you list teacher under employment. You don’t list teacher and homemaker. You can’t be both. You’re either one or the other. Either you work at home, caring for your family, or you work in some field. It’s an either or situation. There is no middle ground. Are you a homemaker or do you have a job?

Are you working at home or in the workforce?

Women were designed for a reason. We were given certain roles in life. We started life as daughters, we may be sisters. We are wives, mothers. This is the role the Lord gave to us. Whatever other plan He may have for us, whatever other work (I’m not talking about a paying job) He may want us to do, whatever else He has in store for us…

We were created to be woman.

We were created to be helpers.

We were created to be wives.

We were created to be mothers.