Desperate for Children

Daily Reading: Genesis 30

Scripture Focus: Give me children, or I shall die! (Genesis 30.1)

Devotional Thought: Having children is big-business. According to Money magazine, the fertility market in America is about $4 billion annually. Many couples are desperate for children.

Jacob's wife Rachel was barren and felt tremendous pressure, socially and biologically, to have children. When she saw her sister bearing sons to Jacob, that pressure increased exponentially. (Remember the social and moral codes were different concerning marriage in that day and culture. What we would consider shocking was commonplace.) I can almost picture this desperate wife, grabbing her husband's shirtsleeves: "Give me children, or I shall die!"

Yesterday we considered the marriage of Christ to The Church and how we ought to love and serve The Church as Christ did. Today, we will think about the outgrowth of marriage: having children. Are we desperate for children in the Kingdom of God?

The scripture says that "as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth children" (Isaiah 66.8). If we want to have children in the Kingdom of God, we must travail! Childbirth will come about when we labor. That labor begins with soul-agonizing prayer: "God, give us children or we shall die!" It continues with the resetting of our priorities and attitudes toward the lost. The labor grows intense when we begin changing things - buildings, budgets, ministries - so that our churches are welcome places for new children. But it all must begin with prayer.

Are we desperate for children? Then let us pray until God comes and brings us souls. Are we indifferent when it comes to children in the Kingdom of God? Then let us pray until God stirs our cold hearts and makes us cry out for the lost to be saved.

Prayer: Father, give us children in the Kingdom of God! We are desperate for the salvation of souls. Move in the hearts of your people until we enter into travailing, prevailing prayer for the lost. Amen

Psalm of the Day: 1To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. 2 Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy, when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary. 3 Do not drag me off with the wicked, with the workers of evil, who speak peace with their neighbors while evil is in their hearts. 4 Give to them according to their work and according to the evil of their deeds; give to them according to the work of their hands; render them their due reward. 5 Because they do not regard the works of the LORD or the work of his hands, he will tear them down and build them up no more. (Psalms 28:1-5)