It’s a common observation by younger couples pursuing marriage or recently married. It happens often enough in the evangelical landscape to be addressed broadly. The general thesis is that this is a dangerous era to have children. The world is a crazy place with hipsters, Kamala Harris, and Harry Styles. I get the fear. I get the cultural grossness. I even get the skepticism of young parents. But let me tell you a thing or two.
Nothing is more joyful than populating the earth with children (Gen. 1:26-28). Nothing is more valuable than seeing these little arrows grow up to irritate leftists with their “Bible this” and “Bible that,” with their intrinsic sense of image-bearing dignity and intense distaste for worldliness.
Now, children can bring grief to their father and mother (Prov. 17:25), but when they seek the things of heaven, they make life a living hell to hell-bound elite parliamentarians.
This is not the most dangerous era of history to have children; this is actually the most productive age to have children. Nay, it is the most adventurous and God-honoring stage of history to have children. And to be really consistent, this is the kind of thing I would say if I were alive 100 years from now.
I would tell every newly married couple to plan wisely to have children and have them at a rate where the 1.9-average-a-year-climate-crisis-expert finds you repulsive. Greta Thunberg will probably not have kids because she thinks the world is in a crisis. She and her legacy will pass away like vapor (Eccl. 1:4), but your kids will take it from her and prove that the world’s crisis is only that which is divorced from Messiah Jesus.
This is the best season in history to have children. It is the most prominent with possibilities for the good to flourish. It is the most fruitful to build true worshipers.
Have babies. Sanctify them. And send them out to roar.
