What You Won't See on Sitcoms about Children

Flip through primetime’s sitcoms, and it won’t take you long to absorb what our culture thinks about children: they drain your love life, your wallet, your independence, your patience, and your sanity. If there’s one message you probably won’t get, it’s the one God wants you to hear: children are a blessing.

Yes, you will be changing diapers and cutting coupons. Yes, date nights with your husband will get harder and time to yourself scarcer. But God does not see children as a liability. He calls them a reward.

At the very heart of God is relationship. Father, Son and Holy Spirit have eternally and blissfully enjoyed togetherness. Perfect relationship overflows with love and at the beginning of time, love overflowed in creation. God created man in His image. He created us to be like Him and to be in the process of becoming more and more like Him.

When God gives us children, He gives us some of His best gifts. He gives us the gift of relationship. He gives us the opportunity to know one of life’s deepest joys: serving another with selfless love. And He gives us a taste of the delight there is in creation, of the delight there is in seeing another made in one’s image, of the delight there is in seeing another grow in that family resemblance. These are His good gifts.

Ask God to show you any ways in which the culture’s dim view of children has tainted your own views. Ask God to make the things that are sweet to Him sweet to you.

Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him. — Psalm 127:3

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