Real Life

Last week our family grew to include a new granddaughter!

Ayame Iris was born June 23 to our daughter living in Japan. (“Ayame” means “Iris” in Japanese.) Her birth reminded me of what real life is about.

On Father’s Day President Obama wrote an article in Parade Magazine. Maybe you saw it. In it he said, “If I could be anything, I’d be a good father.”

With that one statement he implied that being a good father was more important to him than being President of the United States of America! And it is more important.

In the article Obama spoke about the impact growing up without a father had on him. He describes how fatherlessness has hurt America. But most Americans are not as concerned.

Novelist David Lodge said, “Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way around.” God would agree.

Those who read the Bible know God told Adam and Eve “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth.” Then again, after the Flood, God repeated the same command to Noah.

In other words, God said, “Have lots of children and populate the planet!”

“Now hold on just a minute! Isn’t the earth running out of space and resources for people?”

Yes, that’s the myth we’ve been told. And that myth is what drives the desire for small families. It also encourages those who favor abortions to get rid of the innocently inconvenient.

But the reality is far different.

Years ago sociologists predicted we wouldn’t be able to feed the earth’s growing population. But they had no way of knowing about future advances in technology that significantly increased crop yields. Today our government pays farmers NOT to grow crops!

God also said, “Fill the earth.” Those who describe limited space for people and crowded conditions are usually talking about cities. And yes, cities can seem crowded. But what about all those wide open spaces you see when you leave the city and its suburbs?

Cities weren’t God’s idea. They were man’s idea. Check out God’s reaction to humankind’s effort to build the first city around the tower of Babel.

The Bible says God “scattered them over the face of the whole earth.” And there’s plenty of room for people if we would just spread out. We can even turn deserts into gardens if needed!

From our selfish perspective, bigger families and more people are inconvenient for us. Not only that, but our shortsightedness is slowly destroying Western culture.

Recent research describes most Western societies as failing to achieve a replacement rate of reproduction. In other words, we’re not having enough children to sustain our population in the long term. So some Western countries now pay parents to have more children!

How sad we don’t understand what real life is all about until late in life. The older I get, the more I realize that family is one of the things in life that matters most!

Some think that life revolves around politics or success or money. But it really revolves around the family. To be part of a loving family, to have a mother, father, sisters and brothers is a greater blessing than all the wealth or power in the world. Family is real life.

If you’re part of such a family and also a part of God’s family, what else do you need?

God’s plan for the family is to “turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Listen to the Bible; it’s great for your soul!