How many arrows does a full quiver have? If you ask this question to a professional archer, they will tell you, 8. Eight arrows make a quiver “FULL”.

Psalm 127:3 “Behold, children are a gift of the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward . 4Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one’s youth. 5How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed When they speak with their enemies in the gate.

God’s view of children all throughout scripture is very clear. Children are a blessing and a reward from him. We seem to believe children are a blessing as long as we have as many as we can afford, as many as are on our checklist or as many allow us to travel. That is usually 2, max 3. The westernized thinking that children are a problem, or a headache has infiltrated the church and God’s people do not see children as God sees them any longer. (Note:This is something the catholics got right and we still haven’t gotten it yet! They are AGAINST birth control! )

The first objection I hear when talking to a fellow brother/sister in Christ about having more children is that “they have to be a good steward of what God has given them.” Can I suggest to you that verse has NOTHING to do with controlling how many children you should have but instead training them up (being a good steward) of what God has given you. Now what WE planned for ourselves…not what we think we need. Instead allowing God to dictate the number of children we should have. To try to control our life in such way, having a plan all laid out that we didn’t even bother to consult the Lord about is not wise for any of us to do. His ways are higher than ours so our plans will not necessarily be what He plans for us. Total surrender allows God to control every area of our lives.

Children are such a beautiful blessing and a great responsibility. They challenge us to be a better person, they bring us to our knees in prayer and worship, and God uses them in our lives to shape us and mold us into the person He created us to be.

Dave and I wanted to have a big family when we got married. We said we wanted 7. Well after our 4th child was born, Kenny (now 1) my husband said “honey 4 is the new 7!!!” We were exhausted, overwhelmed and learning how to handle (more like crowd control) our 4 since we had 3 less than a year apart. We had a newborn, a 1 ,2 and 8 year old. When I look back, I have no idea how we did it. LOL We did, somehow. The grace of God carried us through. I was going to get my tubes tied and for some reason we felt like that is not what God wanted for us to do. We felt like we were violating our conscience. Now a year later, we are hoping to find out we are pregnant with our 5th soon. God worked in our lives, to change our hearts and show us how wrong we were to dictate what only He should be in charge of. He led us to His word and allowed us to see how wring it is to try to limit the number of blessings He gives us, as to say “do not bless me too much, I know if I leave it up to you Lord…you will just bless away!!!”

I’ve had a lot of people tell me I’m crazy to want to have another child and that I must never want to sleep again. I’ve had people say “WHOA” or “GOOD GRIEF WOMAN”…or they simply stare at me with the “WHY???????????” look!

The right PERSPECTIVE!

Children are gifts and rewards from God, not burdens. They are not just a result of sexual intercourse. Nowadays, man wants to control conception (like he wants to dictate everything else that happens in his life, no surprise there!) by abortion, using fertility treatment or even natural family planning methods of counting your fertile days, etc, but the Bible teaches that conception is truly a gift from the Creator, YHWH. Who decides how full your quiver is? I’m here to suggest that you allow the Creator and the originator of life to continue doing what He’s always done best. He knows our days (Psalm 139:16) He knows the plans for each one of those days (Jeremiah 29:11) He knows what we will come up against and gives us a measure of faith to use to help us (Hebrews 11:1) He promises to help us in our time of need and exhaustion (Matthew 11:28).

 If we truly love the Lord and Honor Him and His word we need to be going to Him with this decision just like we do with all the other decisions of our lives (hopefully). A lot of people trust that God can answer their questions regarding jobs, schools, homes, mission trips, friends or finances but they don’t trust God to show them the plan He has for their lives in this area. This is one of those areas we JUST don’t give over to the Lord because ohhh goodness we will be like the Duggars, if we just let God do His thing! After all, God loves children…us? Hmmm not so much, and if we give Him free reigns then He will just bless away, heaven forbid.

I can think of countless people who have told me “I wish we had decided to have more children!” but their child-bearing years are long gone. Society seems to dictate how many kids we can have based on our income or status in the community, etc, but why is no one asking God what His plan is? Forget about the job you have or the paycheck you don’t have or the house you live in (or don’t live in) or the stress you have. God is the provider…He will never bring children into a christian home and NOT provide for them. See, God doesn’t have the duty to provide for unbelievers. He does for His children, not because we deserve it but because He said he would! If we claim to be His children why then, aren’t we taking Him at His word…oh ye of little faith?

Matthew 6:25“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26“Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27“And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 28“And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 29yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 30“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31“Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ 32“For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

      34“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

God does give us the responsibility to manage our life and to make decisions in our life so there is no shame in deciding how many children to have…or is there? God never gave us autonomy. Everything we do MUST be IN His will or we are simply out of His will. God never gave us the green light to be god of our own life and to go about our own interest and agenda. I’m seeing it demonstrated that the family that has 1-3 children are looked at as more responsible than the family that has 4-18 children…Those families that are bigger are seen as families who their homes MUST be a mess, they must eat canned food because the economy is unforgiving right now and they are surely just making it through…just struggling.

I am here to tell you it is NOT SO! We have 4 so far and even though there are seasons of feeling sick because of pregnancies, exhaustion with a newborn etc…that is not the way we conduct our lives. We live fully and solely for the Lord and strive to teach our children to fear and love the Creator with all their being.

So let’s stop playing God and allow God to do what He does best. Be GOD. We can’t claim to “trust” Him in all areas of our lives if we are not trusting Him in the area of child rearing. That is called hypocrisy my friends.

Resources:

Is Birth Control Biblical?