“God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number’” (Genesis 1:28)

If God wanted to bless you, what do you think those blessings might look like?  Don’t be surprised if they actually look a little bit like you!

For Adam and Eve, whom the Bible says were the first people that God “blessed,” God told them what form their blessing would take:  “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number’” (Genesis 1:28).  God could have blessed them and said, “Here, have four or five vacation homes!” or “Here, have nine or ten priceless cars!”  But instead He blessed them and said, “Here, have a bunch of kids!”  At first glance, some people might wonder if that was a blessing or a curse!

But a deeper look into the heart of God, as revealed from cover to cover in the Bible, shows that children are regarded as blessings from Him.  When God wanted to bless someone in the Bible, that blessing often took the form of a child.

When God “blessed” Adam and Eve, telling them to be fruitful and multiply, they did—having one child, then two, then three, and then “other sons and daughters” (see Genesis 5:4).

When God “blessed” Abraham and Sarah, He gave them a child, and told them that their descendants would one day be “as numerous as the stars of the sky and as the sand on the seashore” (see Genesis 22:17-18).

When God “blessed” Job after all of the tragedy that Job went through, God gave him all kinds of “stuff”—and ten children!  Those children had children of their own, who had children of their own, who had children of their own.  Job was eventually able to see “his children and their children to the fourth generation” (see Job 42:12-16).

I’ve noticed that most self-help books that talk about how to have a more blessed sex life rarely, if ever, mention the blessings of children that result from sex.  But from God’s point of view, the blessing of sex and the blessing of children go together, which brings us back full circle to the twin purposes for which God created sex in the first place:  for intimacy and fruitfulness.

This is not to say that if we don’t have children, or if we have only one child or a few children that we are not blessed by God.  As I’ve read through the Bible, God doesn’t give an optimal number of children for anyone.  Sarah had one, Rebekah had two, Eve had many—Jesus didn’t have any.  What I do find in the Bible is that each of these people viewed children as blessings from God regardless of how many, if any, they had.

But getting God’s mindset about children doesn’t always come naturally.

Getting God’s Mindset

When I was about twelve, an exchange student from another country lived with our family.  When she told us about her family and how she and her ten brothers and sisters all lived in a small house in what we would consider poverty, we felt sorry for her.  There were three of us kids in our family and we felt rich by comparison.  What a shock it was to later hear that her father felt sorry for us!  How poor that family must be, he thought, to have so few children.

I had to rethink my definition of what it means to be rich and what it means to be poor!  Several years later, when I was about to marry Lana, I had to rethink my definition even more!

As Lana and I talked about our future together, she told me that she wanted to have twelve kids!  She came from a family of nine and said that she always wished there were more kids around to play with.  In my family of three kids, I was thrilled whenever I had the peace and quiet of the house all to myself.  Somebody’s mindset was going to have to change!

With our wedding just a few months away, I began to pray that God would give us the exact number of children He wanted us to have.  Six kids later, I’m still praying!

As I began to read the Bible on the subject of children, I began to see that person after person viewed children as blessings.

When King Solomon wrote about children, he said, “Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them” (Psalm 127:5a).  When Mary found out she was pregnant with Jesus, she said, “From now on all generations will call me blessed…” (Luke 1:48b).  When some little children came up to Jesus, the disciples tried to “shoo” them away.  Jesus responded with these classic words, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14).  Whether we have one child, ten children or no children, God wants our hearts towards children to be the same as His:  viewing them as blessings from Him and blessings to Him.

While my mindset towards children began to change when I got married, to be honest, my heart didn’t catch up until Lana was pregnant with our third child.  Not that I wasn’t thrilled for the first two!  But with the uncertainty of what to expect during the first pregnancy and with the health complications that Lana experienced early on with the second, it wasn’t until the third pregnancy that I was finally able to relax and genuinely feel that God was blessing me.  In fact, I felt it so strongly when I found out Lana was pregnant for the third time, we decided to name our third child with two names that mean “blessing”—a double blessing!  I felt that I could finally see the true blessing of children from God’s point of view.

Sex, with God’s Blessing

As our view of sex lines up more and more with God’s view of sex, the blessings that come from sex become much more evident.  Bill Allison, the founder of Cadre Ministries, tells the story about a time when he was praying the prayer of Jabez and asking God to expand his borders.  When his wife became pregnant with their sixth child, she said, “He prayed, and I’m the one who got expanded!”

Having God’s mindset about children can change the actual experience of sex, too.  To make love with your spouse without fear of pregnancy, but actually thinking about it and looking forward to it as a blessing from God, is enough to knock your socks off.  Sex can be more fun and more exciting when there’s no holding back, knowing that what you’re doing is with the full knowledge of, consent of, and blessing of God.

For me, when Lana’s been pregnant, our times of intimacy have been just as enjoyable, if not more so.  Perhaps it has something to do with knowing that the child conceived within her has been conceived as a result of our lovemaking, not to mention the fact that her hormones double daily during pregnancy.

On the other hand, someone might rightfully ask:  “But isn’t it a lot of work to take care of kids?”  Absolutely!

As blessings of any kind increase, so do the responsibilities.  Jesus says:

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48b).

Anyone who actually owns two or three vacation homes or two or three cars—let alone nine or ten—would attest to this fact.  Between all of the maintenance, repairs, taxes, insurance, and the ongoing investment of time, all these things can threaten to steal the joy from even the most enthusiastic homeowner or car lover.  The key to keeping your joy is keeping God’s perspective at the forefront of your mind—not a trivial task some days!—but a task that can turn something that might feel like a burden back into the blessing that God intended it to be.

God wants us to get His perspective on life, which doesn’t always come naturally.  As God says:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

But when we ask Him to, God will help us to close the gap between His thoughts and ways and ours.  And when He does, it can make all the difference in the world, as I’ll share in the next and final chapter.

Review Questions

1. When God blessed Adam and Eve, with what did He bless them? (Genesis 1:28, Genesis 5:4)

2. What are some other examples from the Bible where children were viewed as blessings? (Genesis 22:17-18, Job 42:12-16, Psalm 127:5, Luke 1:48)

3. What also increases as the blessings of God increase? (Luke 12:48)

4. How different are our thoughts and ways compared to God’s? (Isaiah 55:8-9)