“Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the Lord protects a city, guarding it with sentries will do no good. It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones. Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him. Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior’s hands. How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them! He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates.”
Psalms 127:1-5 NLT
The psalm curiously links two things together whose connection is often overlooked in modern society. The idea that a house is built by the Lord and that a family is the means by which one achieves a sense of accolade. In our culture, we often rally against children and home. First of all, we government subsidize single parent homes. Second we send our children away from the home to learn how to be adults. Tertiary, we encourage our parents to kill their children leisurely. Lastly we create a system of malnutrition for their bodies so they are weak. All of this is counterproductive to God’s desired treatment for the family. His prescription for a healthy family is one that stewards a child holistically. A child is desired, well maintained and shepherded until they are ready to go take care of others. This process is good for the parent as well as the child. Solomon lingers on the fact that parenting creates a strong house, wall and warrior. It creates a level of joy that is rewarding and a blessing and it strips that person of a sense of shame. It is therefore interesting and even insidious that our culture works so hard to remove a proper parenting ideology from our lives. What better way to make our walls and warriors weak?
JOSH McGARY.COM 