The Gospel Coalition

God Doesn’t Owe Me Children

They are three dates I know well: May 13, 2016; June 10, 2016; July 7, 2016. They are marked in red, testifying to the vacancy of my womb. I’m technically infertile with what is known as secondary infertility—a couple who’s already produced at least one child faces sudden difficulty conceiving another. In most cases, couples are considered infertile after a year of trying without pregnancy.

My husband and I are the thankful parents of two precious daughters—ages 5 and nearly 3. We would be grateful for a third child and have prayed for almost two years for that gift. This isn’t the first time we’ve petitioned God for a child.

We began our marriage with the hope of children and decided against the use of contraceptives. Pregnancy took its time. I can remember mornings before God in bitter tears. I longed for children and so sought the One who enables conception (1 Sam. 2:21).

The Lord has used both motherhood and infertility in my sanctification. These have been useful instruments, cutting and revealing my heart. Yet he doesn’t leave me undone; he knits me together anew by the grace of his Word. As I kneel today to pray for a third child, two truths ring in my heart.

1. God doesn’t owe me children.

God’s command to our first parents was clear: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:16–17). Adam and Eve disobeyed, and God’s word proved true. Physical death crashed into the world (Gen. 3:19).

But even in judgment, we see God’s grace. The couple is spared from immediate death. God covers them with a garment of his making, and sustains them with the promise of an offspring who will crush the lying snake (Gen. 3:15, 21).

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God ordains life in the shadow of death. Eve is named the mother of the living; she lives and bears children (Gen. 3:20). Surely every child born to the fallen progeny of Adam and Eve screams of God’s unmerited mercy.

God owes us nothing but judgment; which of us, then, can claim the gift of children on the basis of our goodness? Even righteous Elizabeth and Zechariah were said to be childless (Luke 1:6). The couple’s saving faith was proven by their faithful obedience, and yet the next verse tells us “they had no child, because Elizabeth was barren, and both were advanced in years” (Luke 1:7). If children are a heritage and reward (Ps. 127:3), how could this righteous couple not earn the prize? Because children, like all good gifts, are not earned; they are given, coming down from “the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).

In his wisdom, God ordains barrenness for Elizabeth and then, in time, gives a son to fulfill his own plan (Luke 1:57–79). “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases” (Ps. 115:3). And he doesn’t owe me children.

2. I must continue to pray.

Darlene Deibler Rose was a missionary to Indonesia in the 1930s. She was captured by the Japanese and imprisoned during World War II. In her book, Evidence Not Seen, she tells a remarkable story of God’s mercy activated through prayer.

Detained in a cell, Darlene witnessed someone smuggling bananas to a fellow prisoner. Barely surviving on meager rations of rice porridge, she was suddenly gripped by the desire for a banana. Everything in her wanted one—she could almost see, smell, and taste bananas. “Lord, just one banana,” she prayed. But how could God possibly get a banana to her in a WWII prison? Her brutal guards would sooner kill her than provide such nourishment. Was she wrong to ask for such a thing?

The following day, Darlene was surprised by the visit of a certain camp commander. Tears filled his eyes as he gazed on her emaciated form. He spoke briefly with her and left. Moments after his departure, a guard walked into her cell and threw several bunches of bananas at her feet. The commander had managed this favor. Stunned, Darlene counted to find 92 bananas.

She had prayed for just one.

God is pleased to display his omnipotent love through the instrument of prayer. While ordering everything according to the counsel of his sovereign will, he accomplishes his purposes through the prayers of his people (Eph. 1:11–16). How fitting that Christians are commanded to pray without ceasing. We pray as active laborers in God’s work (Luke 18:1–8; 1 Thess. 5:16–18).

In Knowing God, J. I. Packer states: “People who know their God are, before anything else, people who pray”—and not only this, but “their zeal and energy for God’s glory come to expression . . . in their prayers.” We pray with a jealousy for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:9–10). And because our Father works through the means of our prayers, we bring everythingto him—from bananas to babies (Phil. 4:6).

All Things Well

So God doesn’t owe me children. I cannot claim a third child on the basis of my works or the strength of my faith. Yet I will pray. Prayer acknowledges God’s kindness and his sovereignty—to pray is to worship. And worship is particularly essential when hope is deferred.

It turns my longing heart back to the hand that keeps it. I’m reminded that prayer itself—not just the gift I seek—is good. And prayer is good because God is good. So if the coming months (or years) bring days marked in red—or a due date to erase the memory of all the rest—I will kneel in prayer, rejoicing in my King, for he does all things well.

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