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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Hey, everyone. Hey, guys. Today we are talking about biblical perspective on family size.

And we’re going to give some warnings at the end as you get advice from others about this topic. Some things to think about and how someone should approach that. And if they’re not, that’d be a warning.

That’s right. We’re also going to talk about the ditches on either side of the road on this Christian topic, as well as giving you some warnings on what to look out for. And you guys, just as we discussed in the previous podcast, we are talking about our stance and bringing clarity to what we believe regarding the Quiverfull movement.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom.

And Isaac from Resolute Man Together pursuing the mission to impact 10 million families and their legacies for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been married for 23 years and are seeing the fruit from raising our nine children Biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children as too many from Christian families are walking away from their faith by the age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

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If you want access to all the episodes, show notes and other biblically based resources, go to be courageous ministry.

Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey, welcome, everybody.

Hey, guys.

Glad to have you back.

Hey, we are talking about a really important, relevant topic today. We are talking about biblical perspective on family size. Um, during this podcast, we want to kind of what is our agenda? We want to warn people about ditches. That’s one of our purposes. Yeah, because this is a topic that obviously you can fall into ditches on either side of the road. We’ll label those and be really clear about that as well. Clarity. We want to bring clarity, absolutely, because it’s easy for people to stereotype. I think that all humans, whether we are willing to admit it or not, stereotype at times. And it’s easy to think if somebody has few children that they must believe something specific and that’s why they only have 1 or 2 children. And that could be completely unfair and inaccurate. We shouldn’t be critical like that. And the same goes for when people have a large family like we do, actually, where people could easily stereotype and think that we believe certain things that we don’t believe. So we want to bring clarity to that in today’s episode as well. But this is a very personal issue. It is.

Yeah. God has a unique design for every family. That’s how we’ve always said it to anybody. And we don’t see a certain number of kids being better than another for a family. In fact, children are a blessing. But really, God has a unique plan for everybody.

That’s right. And so we’re going to talk about, you know, this is this is one of those disputable issues. I think.

That. What do you mean by that?

Well, we’re going to dive into it a little bit more today. But it’s not black and white. And I think that that’s where the mix up gets. So we want to start out today by encouraging you guys in scripture. We’re going to dive into the word and we’re going to talk about, well, okay, family size. We’re talking about babies. We’re talking about children here. So what is the Bible actually say about children and babies? So we’re going to start off in Genesis chapter one, verse 28 says, and God bless them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. So obviously, this is a very popular verse for for specific movements. We mentioned them in our previous podcast. There’s something called the Quiverfull Movement. We’ll also read a Bible verse that talks about Quivers in a second, and there has been within one of the ditches, there’s a whole spectrum of beliefs and I say spectrum. We’re going to kind of talk about this a little bit more in a minute, but when we’re going over and sharing what people believe about it, it’s not that every single person that believes children are a blessing believes these things. And I just want to bring clarity to that because sometimes people will believe one part of it and they don’t believe another. They actually are more biblical, like biblically balanced in some of their beliefs. And so this is where it’s really important that we are not condemning other people, we’re not being critical spirited or overly judgmental. And so that’s what I mean by disputable. Gotcha. So yeah.

And while we’ve never been part of the Quiverfull movement, in fact, I’ve had to ask Angie what she knows about it, to know anything about it myself recently. And she knows some about it, just seeing it out there, so forth. But we’ve never been part of that. But we do believe some of the same things, like children are a blessing and that, you know, we’ve always walked down the road of not stopping having kids for selfish reasons. We’ll get into that and that kind of thing. But I think really this is a parenting podcast and your legacy is kind of on the line in a way. I mean, think about it for a second. The words we choose to use as parents have a big impact on how our children decide and view things in the future. So let’s say we have I don’t know what the number is. Say we have four children and and there’s another family with six children, or maybe there isn’t, but the kids just go, Hey, are we going to have another child? And let’s say you’re not going to have another child. Well, how you talk about that’s pretty important.

How you answer your child’s question.

You answer the words you use and the reasons are teaching everything.

And can I also just encourage you guys, it’s not just the words that you use, it’s also how you say them, right? Or the looks that you have if you roll your eyes or if you just kind of sigh and exhaustion or whatever it is. If you if you are on the down side of things and you’re giving that kind of a response and telling your kids, no, we’re not having more, how you answer that question is truly going to influence your children in their view of children and how many they may potentially have. And that’s why we say that your generational legacy, if you will, is on the line in a sense. In fact, that leads us to a really important question we wanted to ask you guys. Do you want to have grandkids? Because I think how you live your life also, even without words, without any verbal or non-verbal language, how you live your life speaks volumes to your children. And, you know, I think that this is a personal we talked about this this is a personal decision between a husband and a wife. And it’s not something that you need to elaborate on with your children, but your view of babies, your view of kids and your openness to receiving one, whether it’s biologically or even through adoption, is going to be influencing your children in their view of kids. And that’s just something we all need to be aware of.

So are the words you’re using, the answers you’re giving, one that is going to encourage them, even though in their future they will likely perceive it to be a harder time in history to be having children. There’ll be more fear in the world and more challenging things happen, perhaps more persecution of Christians and things like that. In that environment, based on what you’re saying and what they will perceive as an easier time. Actually, when you had children, are they going to go, Wow, yeah, I should have children? Or are they going to say, you know, maybe children aren’t for me or maybe I’ll limit that to a really small number and, you know, for for fear reasons and we would say operating in fear, any kind of fear in decision making, usually decision making is not a best decision. Usually there’s a more fruitful decision in anything than operating in fear and making a decision based on fear. So we don’t want to raise our children in that way. And this echoes into the future. This is impacting potential legacies in the future. So I think regardless of the decisions you’ve made, how we talk about it is very, very important. And I think as we go through this, you’ll get pick up on some of the things that might be important. Yeah.

Now a disclaimer that we definitely we put this at the beginning of our previous podcast that we mentioned as well. I think it’s episode seven where we talk about there are nine reasons why couples wouldn’t want to have kids, right? And that’s a very popular episode if you are interested in listening to that.

We challenge the nine reasons why.

Yes, And so that is in season one. Like I said, it’s episode seven and we’re going to put the same disclaimer in this episode as we’re putting in that episode that, you know, we are not in any way speaking to the issue of infertility or loss, though we have experienced losses ourselves and I’ve shared very intimately and very openly about our experiences with miscarriage and loss and grief. And if you are going through something like that, our heart goes out to you and we just want to encourage you and share those resources with you. We have a playlist of worship music to help you grieve this process so that you can give thanks in the midst of grieving or worship while you weep, if you will. Those are the names of those two blog posts. You can find those at courageous mom.com and but but today’s episode more about people who are not struggling with infertility if you will. And there there may be blessed in a sense of of having to deal with this question of do I take control or do I give God control or not? And how do you go about that and seasons of life? And so just how to put that disclaimer there. But in the Bible verse that we just read in Genesis 128 said, Be fruitful and multiply. And I just want to highlight two words fruitful and multiply. The first word in that sentence was fruitful, be fruitful. And I think that in this specific verse there’s a heavy focus on the word multiply as far as procreation goes and less of an emphasis on being fruitful. And we need to be looking at the Bible holistically and recognizing that God is saying that both are important. Now, when you say the word fruitful, Isaac, what do you what do you think God is talking about in that specific verse regarding fruitful? Is it worldly fruit success?

It’s things that God would look at is positive and forward moving and progress and and bounty. And it’s your farm is fruitful. It’s growing good produce. You know, you can’t have good fruit from a tree that also produces bad fruit. Jesus talked about this, right? So talking about good fruit fruitfulness and having children, obviously, and a family and so forth. But, you know, but it’s not just about having children. It’s about godly fruitfulness coming through. Children. Children are being discipled. They’re being raised up. Right. It’s fruitful marriage where they’re working on the marriage. Not perfect. God doesn’t say perfect marriage. He’s fruitful. Fruitful is a word of spiritual goodness happening through the marriage and through the family and in the offspring and so forth. And. While we can’t save our kids, it’s not something parents can do. The only guy can do that. But we are the God authorized, most important disciplers of children and leaders of children. Our own children, our own children. And so, you know, we’re pointing them to Jesus. We’re raising him up and the way they should go. Right. And we hope that they do become believers. But that is a fruitful effort. And seeing the fruit in their parents, seeing the fruit in their parents marriage, they’re gleaning wisdom as they’re being raised up.

I think it’s so good and it’s important that we recognize that that is something that we should be pursuing in it as well, not just, you know, this extreme of multiplication of having as many babies as you can, for example, without the fruitfulness as being a main focus as well. And I think that there is also something to be looking at regarding the word multiply. Isaac and I were just talking. I was like, this is an interesting this is an interesting word that God chose. He didn’t choose to put add to your family. He didn’t say be fruitful and add to your numbers. He said multiply. Right. And so when you’re talking about math, there’s I mean, think about that. What is multiplication? It’s not addition, It’s not subtraction. It’s definitely not division. And so there’s there’s an importance for us to have a realistic perspective of, okay, well, what is being said here and to really dig into that. And so we just wanted to bring a few of our little questions that we’ve wrestled with over the years as we’ve studied that scripture. And what does that mean? And hopefully that’s opening up an exciting way for you to go back to Genesis chapter one and be encouraged and be studying those words, I would encourage you guys to open up Blue Letter Bible.org Go to your concordance, look up the word fruitful, look up other words, other places where that same word is listed. That’s where Isaac did. And that’s why he was bringing Bountiful fruit within a farm. And talking about the fig tree that Jesus talks about and how neither good or bad that came from that kind of a study. And so helping you to understand a word that might be easy for you to understand from the like. Everyone knows what fruitful means, like when you think about it. But if you ask what does God mean? Because this is God’s word to us looking at other verses in the Bible that also use that exact same word in the Greek form is very helpful and helping you to have a grander explanation of it, if you will.

Yeah, I think that’s so good. And let’s just pause for a moment and just talk about the other side of things, what the enemy is doing in the world right now. There’s a belief that human beings are harmful, that population is growing out of control, that we should have less human beings on earth and these kinds of things. But you know what the reality is, is that is a lie that goes against the mandate of God. That is not what is true. And isn’t that true that the enemy is going to breed the lies that are the exact opposite of the truth that God is encouraging us with in the Bible? And so you’re going to see that. So when you see that out there, we’ve got to make sure the pressures of the world aren’t seeping into Christian culture and impacting our mindset. And we don’t even realize it coming through biblically minded people even sometimes, and really pressing us in a way of limiting what maybe God has for us. So I think that’s really important to look at because there is a belief that, wow, you know, the really elite, the rich, they’re going to figure out how to live forever. They don’t believe in heaven. So they’re going to live, figure out how to live forever through technology that literally is their game plan, these billionaires and so forth. And they’re rapidly trying to figure out our artificial intelligence is a big part of that transhumanism. It’s already happening. While I’m a fan of Elon Musk, in some ways I like what he’s doing with Twitter. In other ways, he’s doing some weird things with, you know, humans and technology. Right now they’re just doing their trials of brain implants at Neuralink. So there’s these things that are happening that are interesting. So you have these opposing kind of forces happen. And as Christians, I just want to make sure that we have regulated our mind on the Bible and biblical truth, and we’re not falling into the traps of that. You know, population is a bad thing.

That’s very good. And I think that that has been a huge influence on one of the sides of the ditches that we’re going to talk about in just a few minutes here. I think that one of the things that is important to recognize also is that this verse be fruitful and multiply. It has a purpose to it. Right? God also says in that very same verse and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish. So this is often referred to as the Dominion mandate Scripture. Oh, there’s our beautiful rooster. Um, but this is often referred to as the Dominion mandate because that’s one of the purposes for which God, that’s one of the purposes that we all have, right, is to be caring for the land, be caring for the animals, be caring for one another. God definitely gave us that authority as human beings. And so to be teaching that purposefully and raising our kids up to be able to give a their best contribution to the society that they’re in is an important aspect of raising our children, right? That they would be lights for the glory of God first and foremost, but that they would also be having a godly character as they’re having dominion.

Right. And the thing is, is this verse, though, there has been there have been books that have been written based upon this verse. And while there are some things in there in that specific book that can be encouraging, there’s also some things that I believe personally are taking stretching it a bit and taking it to an extreme. And so that’s where we as Christians are called to go. Okay, hold on a second. Really study the word filter everything just through the word and and be careful not to take on extra biblical. I’m not saying anti biblical, but like extra biblical beliefs. And then over time, what’s dangerous about those is that those can then like humans do this all the time. They start saying it as if it is the Bible. And so one of those extra beliefs is that it’s a commandment to have as many children as possible would be taking be fruitful and multiply to an extreme stretch. Right.

Like everybody’s commanded to have as many children as possible regardless of any situations.

Right, Exactly. And so taking that, that would be an extreme like an extremist view. And there’s a spectrum within the Quiverfull movement, right? Like, of course, not everyone believes that extreme part of that. I just want to make that very clear, that we’re not trying to group everybody into one lump, but it is important to understand what some people do believe. And, you know, if they want to believe that that’s between them and God, but to impose that belief, that is extra biblical and that is a stretch on to other people. That is where it’s crossing a line, in my opinion, because God is not in any way when he says be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea. When you go to the Ten Commandments, it’s not listed in there to be fruitful and multiply. That’s not one of the commandments. And then when Jesus again, when he in the Gospels, when he’s asked what is the greatest commandment, he says, to love the Lord, your God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself, Well, are we loving our neighbor as ourself if we’re taking extra beliefs? Right and imposing them on them in a condemning kind of way that even doesn’t set them free, but puts a different yoke of slavery on them in a way. And I just think we need to be careful of that.

Or if there’s whole groups, you know, that if you’re going to be part of this group, then you need to believe this way. And if you enact this way and if you don’t, then you’re going to be not treated well in this group. You’re not going to be a solid part of the group. You’re going to feel persecuted to be part of the group, and that is not good.

So let’s read from Psalm 127. Okay. So this is talking about unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to labor in vain. I want to. I want to let the Lord be the one building it right. And I’m sure you would agree too. But it says in verse three, it says, Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb. A reward like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. So this is verses three through five in Psalm 127. This is you guys. I’m so encouraged by this verse because this is talking about how children are a reward. They are our eternal inheritance, they’re our heritage and they’re from God. They’re literally anything from God. I even think of every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights. That’s the Lord. This. And if our children are from the Lord, they are a good gift. They are a heritage, right? Like. But then it goes on to say that like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. And so you think of a think of a warrior for a second, Does a warrior go out to war with one arrow or even a hunter because a hunter go out?

I was just looking up this in medieval times, in early times, you know what warriors would go out with as we’re preparing for this in their quiver? How many arrows would be in there? And they say 50 to 100 arrows in a quiver. And a lot of times warriors, if they’re smart, they have multiple quivers, actually. And so you’re talking about hundreds of arrows in their quiver. And so but.

Is that actually physically realistic? So for a married couple.

So to take that verse and to start to think about a certain number of kids is a goal would be wrong. It would.

Be ridiculous.

It would be ridiculous. The message here is children are a blessing. We should desire God’s blessings that he has for us and we should be discerning too, and loving our wives well and paying attention to health and all these things. Right. We have a lot to consider. But but definitely being having an open mind towards the blessings of God and that multiple children is a great thing. That’s the extent I would think of that verse, but I would never start thinking in terms of specific numbers of children. And I think from what you’ve told me, that’s happened before with people.

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, this is one of the other verses along with Genesis 128 that they use regularly to put I’ve heard some people put seven on a number, I’ve heard people put 12. I’ve like it’s just it’s interesting how why people want like a specific goal or a specific number to be like in their mind, obedient to filling their quiver. And it’s I just want to exhort the church right now that quivers are many different sizes. You know my dad many years ago he sent me an actual like, quiver. It’s made of leather. It was handcrafted. And it was just it was part of a because he knew that I had this goal of like putting this verse on stencil on one of the walls in our other house. And and so he thought, oh, maybe she’ll hang up a quiver and this quiver, there’s no way that you could fit more than maybe 6 or 7 arrows in it because it’s smaller. And I remember thinking this was a legitimate, like handmade leather quiver. And I remember thinking to myself, this is so beautiful, because this is a perfect example of how God creates the quiver, like He creates the womb. He, like we see in Scripture, where God opens and closes women’s wombs multiple times. And in that, we need to be humbled by the fact that God is a masterful designer. He is a masterful creator. And that goes for the size of our families, too. And so if, if, if we believe that each person is created uniquely in God’s image, but they have different gifts and talents and that he disperses the gifts among the body for the edification of the whole, if we believe all these different scriptures right, then surely we believe that he also designs each family differently and uniquely with different gifts.

And so the element of competitive comparison, for example, would be foolish and a waste of time and even sinful because, God, that’s like an insult on God’s creation of another family if we think that we’ve got it all together. Plus there’s pride involved, if that’s it. Right. And and the same goes. There’s pride in the in the family member and a lacking of humility. If you think you’re not good enough, if your family’s not good enough because you don’t have as many kids as they have God, there’s an element of contentment that God calls us to in appreciating what he has given us. And so if you’ve been given one miracle child, I know that we weren’t going to speak specifically to infertility, but I have to bring this up. If you have one miracle child because you’ve been struggling with infertility, praise Jesus. And I pray that you would have contentment and satisfaction and thankfulness and gratitude in your heart. And if you still desire children to be going to the throne of the Lord, asking him to open your eyes to all possibilities, because it may be not a biological one, you know, and I, I think that sometimes we think it has to be a certain way, but God and his goodness challenges us to stop putting him in a box by how we think our lives are supposed to look perfect. And we are challenged by that in Scripture. I think he uses quiver for a specific reason because he knows they’re all different sizes.

Well, and he also, you know, talking about arrows, right, to go do good in the world and share the gospel and share the message and that’s wonderful. Yeah. And multiple children doing that is a great thing.

For sure. So the next verse that we wanted to share with you guys is in Psalm 128. So just go down to the next chapter. And it it starts on verse three here.

So I want to take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already is the date night one sheet. It is a beautiful document you can download that Will has some key questions on it for your date night to just get in alignment about what’s most important for your family. No matter what time of year, it’s always important to recalibrate. You can get that by going to courageous Parenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything at Courageous Parenting.com. And also just want to share real quick about the Parenting Mentor program. So many families are being transformed by going through this. It’s the six week self-paced program with live engagement from us and even direct interaction. So if you want to join us, here’s a little bit more about it. You can find out more at Courageous Parenting.com.

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Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house. Your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold. Thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord? Okay, so again, you know, having, uh, olive shoots around your table, well, everybody can have different sized tables, too, you know? And it’s a beautiful verse. I love it. I know. And we. You know, but a.

Table isn’t a certain size. Yeah. And olive trees, they’re very different. Like, they have different numbers of shoots on them. And I think that that’s a perfect example. Like we are gardening right now actually had an olive tree that I was trying to grow in it. It was only growing four shoots. You guys like it was maybe five years old. And so I just think to myself, like, why do we put numbers on? Why do we have these expectations? Okay, so it can be good to dream. I’m not saying don’t dream. You know, Isaac and I, all of our podcasts, we’re all about like, what do you see in five years? Ten years? We love dreaming. It’s one of the fun aspects. But can I just share with you a personal thing that for Isaac and I, we literally when people would ask us how many kids we wanted to have, we never gave an actual number ever, because we believed that, you know what, We don’t we don’t actually know. And it wasn’t this perspective of we’re going to have as many as possible. That’s not what it was. It was that we don’t know because we’re taking it one kid at a time and we’re trying to enjoy and delight in the ones we have and be content with where we are, because there were times where we wanted to be pregnant and we couldn’t get pregnant. And there were long seasons. There was there was almost three years between our first two kids where we were especially really desiring to have another baby. And in God’s goodness, I didn’t get pregnant earlier than I did because I ended up having an emergency appendectomy and it would have killed the baby. And that’s a whole that’s a whole side story. But but like you guys, this is the thing. We have to understand, that God is in control and rest in that and understand and trust him that his ways are much better than our ways. Because if I had control over that and I got pregnant a few months earlier, it would have been disastrous.

And we were on a journey to of this whole subject. You know, it’s like we didn’t have all these same exact beliefs right in the beginning. You know, I originally had an idea in my head of having two kids and a dog in a house and retire at 35. I mean, I had this really American dream kind of picture that I don’t think is was inaccurate for our family in a lot of ways. And I’m thankful for that. So I just think that it’s way, way imagine being retired. Nothing to do with two children. That’s just not what God called us to do. And so we wouldn’t be doing this work right now.

We wouldn’t have been prepared. We’d be completely different people if we would have only had two kids. I know that, like for me, it would have been easier for me, for example, to work in the school system. And help our kids and be more active. And that would have changed who our kids are today. It would have changed me as a wife and a homemaker and as a mom. And I think that, you know, we need to recognize, too, that at least for Isaac and I, we were just reflecting. And it was really beautiful to reflect on how every time that we have received a blessing from the Lord, how it’s not like we were always ready for it, you guys, we weren’t always like even financially the first six. Praise God, I look back on those first ten years of our 14 years. We were we were very blessed financially. It wasn’t even a consideration, although Isaac was thinking about retirement. And I look back on that and I go, Wow, praise, praise the Lord. That was totally his doing in our life. But when we had Solomon, it was a very different financial situation for us, and Isaac’s business was going under at that time, and we ended up having a half $1 million in debt, plus an almost million dollar house that we were potentially going to be foreclosing on because our renter wasn’t paying money.

A whole lot of big things were happening. And it would have been like if we were in our flesh and not abiding in Christ, it would have been easy for us to panic and to fear and to really struggle during that time. But I look back on that time with the fondest of memories, because that was when we grew the most in the Lord together in our marriage and also as a family. And I’m not saying that like everyone has that same story, but if you are struggling right now, I just want to encourage you to seek God. Because when you’re both seeking God and you’re meeting at him, that’s where strength in your marriage comes. And then you’re much more prepared to be able to lead your kids. And I know that for us, like Solomon came at such the perfect time, we needed that joy of a new life and the blessing of life and that God trusted us to raise another child. And it spoke so many volumes to us from the Lord of Blessing and Promise in a different kind of way than our other kids did.

I got the message, Wow, everything’s going to be fine because you’re trusting me with another child and I have negative money right now. All finances lost, very trying financial time. But what a way to trust the Lord. Like he gave me this blessing. So of course he’s going to take care of us. And of course, he always promises to take care of us.

Yeah, I think, too, though, I just. I just want to say you guys like our story is not prescriptive for how things are going to play out in your life. And I think that it’s really important that you hear that, because I think that sometimes when people are sharing their testimonies of the goodness of God in their life, they can tend to think, Oh, well, if I just trust him like they did, then maybe X, Y, and Z will happen for me too. And that’s not what this is. We do not believe in a prosperity gospel of of sorts, where it’s like if you receive the blessings from the Lord, you’re also going to receive financial blessing. That’s not what this message is. That was just our testimony of what we experienced and what God was challenging us personally in, in that season of our life because we were struggling financially. And so I just want to make that clarity there, that this is not like a prescriptive, this is not a teaching. This is our testimony of that. And what God really he really humbled us because there was there was a little bit of us like going, Well, of course we can have six kids, we can afford them. And like there was, there was a little bit of pride in that, that like, Oh, we’re doing good, you know? And God does not like pride. Pride comes before the fall. And I think that he wants us to be fully devoted to him and fully appreciative and glorifying him for everything all the time. So, you know, as we shared from verses Psalms 127 and 128, we do believe that children are a blessing. We do believe that it’s a gift to receive another child into your life.

But we also don’t see in here and believe that it is a stretch if people are putting a specific number on a size. And so we wanted to clarify that and make that really clear that that’s not something that we see in Scripture. And as far as society goes, you talked about a belief that is in the liberal society regarding being foolish for having children. It’s not environmentally responsible would be another term that you see thrown around out there. But one of the things that you see even within the Christian community is that people will be competitive and if they’re struggling and they can’t possibly imagine having another child and then you’re having another one and you have more than them, there’s this judgment of imposing what their reality is on another family and thinking they’re foolish simply because they cannot fathom what it would be like to be having a few more children than they already have. And that’s also not okay that imposing your realities on other people’s lives or your struggles on other people is not biblical, and we need to not borrow troubles. The Bible speaks specifically to not borrowing trouble. So we don’t want to be borrowing our troubles onto other people and we don’t want to be borrowing other people’s troubles into our own lives. And that’s that would be a biblical wisdom warning for you right there. Um, many years ago, we watched a documentary called Demographic Bomb. Um, it’s very interesting if you can find it out there. It’s probably over a decade old now, but, but in watching it, it’s really played out now.

Yeah, it’s a reality today, which is there’s not enough children being born to operate economies and to make up for the people that are passing away. So I think it’s 1.7 children is the US fertility rate right now. And in 2020 it dropped a lot, obviously the Covid stuff, but it trickled up slightly last couple years, but definitely way down compared to many years ago. So definitely there’s not enough children being born. Right. And it’s it’s really important for economies and for fruitfulness and nations and so forth that there is actually a growing population. So anyways, I just think that’s interesting that that fact, economic fact aligns with God’s, you know, Yes. Encouragement to be fruitful and multiply. And, you know, even Elon Musk brought up this issue recently, you know, people in the liberal world that are willing to talk about it are talking about this problem, that it is a problem, that we’re not having enough children. Yeah.

So it’s interesting that they’re seeing this on the other side that probably comes from even perspectives like not having enough people in the future to be in the economy, to be able to tax them enough to provide Social Security. That’s just one example. I remember being in Costco with my kids when we had 4 or 5 of them, and there was they were being really good, but my cart was already full. And this older man, like I’m talking very much older than me at the time I was in my 20s and he was probably in his 70s and he just came up and he said, Wow, don’t you know what prevents that in front of all my kids, by the way, which was a common thing that the kids would hear places, especially in Oregon. And I was so frustrated because I was like, my kids have ears. Are you literally saying, like, I shouldn’t have had any like, one of them? Like, which one would you choose? This is so rude. And I’m just thinking this, but I’m just like trying to be kind. And one of my kids had just watched Demographic Bond with me, and as soon as he left, they went. I feel so sad for that man, Mom.

He probably doesn’t have anybody to love him or take care of him when he’s old and he’s dying. He’s probably going to die alone in a nursing home, isn’t he? And it was just this like reality of like when people don’t have children, like the full circle of life, the way God intended it to be doesn’t actually happen. The sanctification that goes comes in motherhood. So many, so many people talk about this on social media, how motherhood is sanctified and motherhood is sanctified. Well, guess what? Life is sanctifying and relationships are sanctifying. And even if you’re a mom, one day, you’re also going to be a woman who has a mom and a dad who are older, who need them, too. And that should be a sanctifying journey that we look forward to being able to bless our and honor our parents, which is one of the Ten Commandments. And I just think of how that’s missing today and how people just shove people into homes and they don’t they don’t care for them. And I you know, that that to me is devastating. And I think that we can learn something from this, which is this attitude of like, do we value life in general? I really think that that’s what that comes down to, right? Like, do we value life and are we being willing to live pro-life? What does that look like? Living pro-life is anti euthanasia.

Living pro-life is loving people. Well, no matter how old they are, if God’s put them in your life, pro-life is saving babies, is fighting for and speaking up for those who can’t speak for themselves. And I think that there’s a you know, we were talking at the very beginning of this podcast about how important it is that we recognize as parents that we have a huge impact on how our children view children. But I just want to challenge you because I think that we have a huge impact on how our children view life in general. We have a huge influence on how our children view elderly people as well as babies. And if they view them as someone who is is worthy to be, you know, cherished and valued and cared for, or if they just think, oh, we should end their life early because they’re costing too much money in medical expenses. And so we how we live our lives, how we talk about these things, impacts and influences our children in regards to life just in general.

And I think it comes down to the question, does God create the baby or do we create the baby? And I think almost all Christians are going to say, well, God creates the baby. And so well. You write in Psalm 13 and onward, it says Psalm 139. Thank you. Psalm one 3913 for you formed my inward parts united me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful. Are your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance in your book were written every one of them. The days that were formed for me when as yet, there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts? O God, how vast is some of them? If I would count them? They are more than the sand. I awake and I’m still with you. So God is the creator of life. And so.

And sustainer, I would even say so.

Then the question becomes, um. If God’s the creator of life? Or is it okay if we control. The womb. And I think that’s the question everybody wants to know.

I think that’s the question that everyone needs to figure out in alignment with their spouse as they’re seeking God and they’re praying and they’re maybe even fasting over it and and recognizing that we are in we are not we are not gods, we’re not little gods. And I think there is an element of control that people love and crave. There’s an idolatry of control and we need to be wary of that within ourselves. We need to be really introspective and honest with the challenge that we as humans have to want to have control and recognizing that God does actually call us to to love him with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength. And that’s giving him all of us, right. And so not compartmentalizing God out of this. This is very, very much an issue that involves God, as every issue does. The last verse that we want to share with you guys on what does the Bible say about this specific topic? One of the verses that has been in our journey, something that was convicting, is not specifically about children, but it’s about building treasures in heaven. Because Psalm 127 and Psalm 128 do talk about children being an eternal inheritance and recognizing that you can’t save your children, but you can disciple your children. And if it’s God’s will and and they are receiving Christ and they will live with you in eternity as well.

Like if you’re in heaven and they’re in heaven, you’re together. You can’t take anything with you here on this earth. But the whole purpose of the great Commission, for example, is to build treasures in heaven, right? And so, like when churches talk about tithing, for example, they always do it with this perspective of building treasures in heaven. Why? Because the church is supposed to be doing the missional great commission work. And isn’t that what we as parents are doing? First and foremost in our homes? We’re doing great commission work. And so I just want to share Matthew Chapter six, verses 19 through 21, Super Short says Do not lay up for yourselves Treasures on Earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves. Treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys. And where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is there your heart will also be. And for me, as a woman who I’m just going to be really transparent, especially as a young woman, I my heart wasn’t in my home. I didn’t really know what that was supposed to look like. I didn’t know like I. I didn’t ever even think I would be a stay at home wife and mom. That wasn’t a conversation that we had when we were engaged.

It wasn’t something that was modeled for me. And I didn’t really know a lot of people who had done that. And so in my mind, it wasn’t actually even on the plate, if you will, as far as options of what you’re going to do with your life. I thought I was going to work in church and I remember like reading this scripture and going, Whoa, okay, this is talking about something completely different. This is talking about like heart hearts. This is talking about souls. This is talking about the unseen here, building treasures in heaven. How can I do that as a mom? Build treasures in heaven. And it dawned on me, it’s like with my children. And so I just want to encourage you guys that when you receive a little one, you are receiving God. Jesus even says that. And like it’s not just a biological child. When you as a foster parent or you as an adoptive parent or you as a friend of a foster family who’s providing respite for that foster family, you’re receiving a child into your home, you are helping to build treasures in heaven in the sense you are doing the great commission work. And this is so incredibly important that we grasp this because this is one of our core collective purposes. As Christians, you.

Said you’re receiving God. What do you mean by that?

Well, Jesus says when when you open your door unto one of these little ones, you are receiving me. And I just think that’s so beautiful. I think that we need to remember that Jesus himself valued little children and.

They’re not gods. But. Oh, no.

No, no. Oh, I see what you’re saying. No, the value of them and that he. There is just something special about little children, isn’t it? Like I was yesterday. We had church and Xander was sitting on my lap, and lately he’s just been really into worship. He just turned two years old, and he sits there and he has his little hand open. He just starts singing and. And it brings. I told the kids I shared with the kids at church, it just brings so much joy to my heart to see children genuinely worshiping God and without caring what other people think. They just love him. And so they sing at the top of their lungs because they love Jesus. And that is convicting because that’s how we all should be. And I cannot I shudder to think of a day when we don’t have little ones in our life and praise God, we have grandkids already come in and so we probably won’t ever have that.

But, well, hey, we’ve done one of our five points so far, so let’s dive in. Rapid Fire here. Okay. All right. To the next. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Four points.

The other ones are pretty short. Okay, so the second thing we want to talk to you about is the ditches. We’ve been kind of warming up on this. Obviously, there’s this spectrum, right? So envision like a line on a table, if you will, and you’ve got ditches on either side. You’ve got on one side, you have those who maybe are critical of big families. They’ve made the environment an idol in a sense, and they think it’s irresponsible to have a lot of children. The comparison trap affects this side just as much as the other side as well, where they judge. Right. The extreme, extreme side of this could be birth control, pro-choice abortions, planning and having control at all costs. Right. That would be a very severe extreme of it. And then there’s like the ones that believe maybe some of those things.

Are you talking about the like the the medicine birth control, like the.

I said, birth.

Control. Yeah. Okay. But not natural, correct?

Yes. Not family planning, natural family planning. But then, you know, on a spectrum, maybe they believe one thing, right? Like maybe they think it’s irresponsible if you don’t have enough money to have children. But they are pro-life. Right. So there’s many variations of this where there can be one belief in the ditch and then some of their beliefs maybe are a little bit more. Grace giving and more central to Bible believing. Right. But the point is, is that there’s a spectrum and the ditch is way over here, and then there’s another ditch on the other side of the road that is equally critical of small families. And they struggle with the comparison trap in a different kind of way. The real extreme side would be, again, extreme commandment to have as many kids as possible. And that’s a sin if you take any control at all. Even natural family planning, they’re critical and judgmental of people who don’t have lots of kids. Prosperity, gospel like, well, if they just had an open womb, they’d be doing better financially. I’ve met those people, so there’s like an extreme I’ve met people on both sides of this, right, that all claim to be Christian, by the way. And so what’s crazy is that you’ve got these extremes and then you have all the in-between where maybe they believe one of the things or maybe two or maybe three, but then they don’t believe the other things. Okay, So I’m just going to try to leave. I know that that’s kind of hard to imagine, but there’s that.

What we want to encourage you guys is to find biblical balance, which always is going to eliminate condemnation because there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ there. There’s freedom in Christ, there is grace, there is uniqueness. Understanding that when you’re seeking God’s will, he literally changes your life. And that when he is the one that’s planning it and designing it, it’s not going to look cookie cutter to other people. And that’s beautiful. And so as we’re going about and we’re talking about like the next thing that we wanted to talk to you guys about, aside from warning you about the ditches that are on either side, is to be careful when you’re getting advice or even listening to teaching. Like today, we would encourage you guys to definitely like go to all the scriptures. That’s why we tell you exactly where to go. Read everything that we’re reading, read more of Scripture, filter everything through the Word of God. When you are getting advice or listening to teaching, you have to be discerning. You absolutely have to be discerning and and be looking for biblical over opinion. Okay. Like, are they pointing to scripture? Are they willing to exhort you and challenge you to grow biblically, or are they just justifying the decisions that they’ve made in their life and giving you advice that is going to lead you down that same path so that it like validates what they’ve done?

It’s so important to when you’re getting advice from people that they’re good question askers, that’s a sign of somebody that’s discerning in the word and so forth. They’re not just quick to judgment or saying you need to do things exactly how I did, unless, of course, it’s the biblical road of something. But I think it’s important that they ask questions and to discover where you’re really at and cause you to think about it too. And here’s some things. We’ll just be that for you for a second. Some questions to ask yourself Is there are there reasons why you’re not having more children or deciding to stop? If there’s some of these things, we might it might be a warning, It might be something to pray about and think about and maybe work on these things before, you know, having another child. That could be right. How about fear of providing, you know, while provision is important, God is the provider. And I’ve just found personally that a lot of times the provision comes after the children come. And that’s just been a part of my experience. I’ve experienced the other two where there was lots of provision, as you heard earlier. So, you know, I’ve experienced both. And what I can say is that we need to be diligent to provide for our families. It is very, very important. God says so, but at the same time, God is our provider and he will help us. A fear of the world. Fear of the world is going to be probably a big reason. I think that’s probably why a lot of people didn’t have children in 2020, as the statistics show, when Covid was hitting and the world got crazy, these kinds of things. So I think it’s important not to have fear of the world to to continue on having children, um, you know, want a certain lifestyle, right? Well, I can only afford so much. And I think that that’s a scarcity mindset that’s thinking in terms of, you know, what’s happening now financially. But there’s an abundance that is potentially there. You know, one.

Of the things that I’ve witnessed with you is that you, you, you, you’ve never had the scarcity mindset. You’ve done the complete opposite to where you’re like, well, if we’re having another, I just need to make more. I need to get creative. What else can I start? What else can I do? What else you know? And you, you make efforts and you start moving forward and you’re constantly like asking God for his blessing on on the efforts that you’re making. And we put it in his hands. But you do work hard for it. And I think that it’s important that people hear that because there’s probably a lot of people out there that can’t envision having like two more kids than they have now because they’re thinking about the finances. And I just want to highlight what you said, which is if that is something that’s real, don’t just ignore it and have the children, but instead, like pursue like. How can you build more with the Lord’s blessing? How can you do that and and ask for his favor, ask for his wisdom, ask for his guidance in what decisions you’re going to be making if it’s business related and and dedicate that for the purpose of having more kids to the Lord. And I would say.

Work on your heart attitudes, because a fear needs to be overcome and it needs to replace with trust and walking in confidence with your God Almighty. Yeah, I mean, that is what if I was giving someone advice and they were sharing without me? I wouldn’t just say, I would just say, Well, here’s look at what’s coming out. This is really beautiful. You’re expressing in real honesty your fear of the world. Okay. Well, let’s talk about let’s look at what Paul said in the Epistles. Let’s look at our examples. And we’re not to fear the world. We’re to fear God with this different kind of fear. That’s amazing how amazing God is and respect for his authority in our lives and control and influence and how powerful he is and how much he loves us and all these things.

Yeah, and there are so many other reasons that people would potentially not want to have kids. You can go listen to our podcast on a whole bunch more of those. One of the things that I think is worthy of saying is not having support. We had listed like not having a supportive husband, that’s one. But then also not having support, right? Like not having a biblical community that’s supportive. Maybe your family isn’t supportive and the thought of like being sick during pregnancy and taking care of other kids. Maybe you home school too. Like, maybe it’s an overwhelming thought of even thinking about having more kids because you don’t have support. Well, if that we would have the same exact answer for that as we would for fear of not having enough finances in that. Okay, then that is an introspective, honest realization of what you’re walking in regarding your biblical community, and you need to work at building a biblical community as well as walking in faith in moving forward. And that for us has also been something that we’ve experienced as well, where God, he, he has shown himself through his people when we were in need. And but it took us being vulnerable. It took us being humble and being willing to receive help, which is not an easy thing to do. And I think that sometimes in this day and age, there is this lie again, a myth from the enemy that like you have to be able to do it all on your own. Well, what about multigenerational families? Like if you have biblical parents like then invite them to be more a part of the the whole thing. I mean, that’s a beautiful thing if you can do that.

There’s also the issue of husbands maybe aren’t supportive. And if that’s the case, you husbands you’re you know, you may not even be talking about it with your wife, but you might be limiting your legacy. And how about selfishness? Just just not wanting to have to do the work and these kinds of things. It takes when you have a child and these kinds of things. So there’s so there’s so many things. And we’re not saying by any stretch. We’re saying if someone came to us look for advice in a certain way and someone that’s giving you advice should ask questions. And then when you divulge something, they should encourage you in biblical truth, in the right way of thinking about things. And it’s still up to you whether you have more children or not. Right? But this exposes some of these things and the really important to work on in your marriage. And God cares about our hearts and he he cares about your family and he loves you so much. And he’s and he cares.

He cares about all these little things. He cares if you’re scared about going through postpartum again. He cares if you’re struggling with your health. He cares about the selfishness that maybe you have in your heart or if you’re fear of being slowed down because of having another baby again. I mean, I remember that we had we had almost six years between Ethan and Solomon, and I remember thinking, Whoa, I just got out of car seats. Everybody was potty trained. What, like now we’re starting over again. And it it it really revealed a selfishness that I didn’t think was in me that had grown regrown. Yes, regrown. Again. And it was a beautiful thing to have to give that up to the Lord. And so when you’re seeking advice from people or listening to teaching, it shouldn’t be this. You need to have this many kids or, Oh, I think your kids are great, you should have more. It that’s not what we’re talking about. It should never be prescriptive or specific. It should instead challenge you to grow in the Lord. It should challenge you with questions that are going to reveal heart attitudes and heart motives. All the things we just talked about. It should encourage you to be introspective and make sure that the desires that you are pursuing are not desires of your flesh, but instead desires of the spirit. And that truly, like when you find people who are willing to to love you regardless of what your decision is and but they’re going to challenge you to grow in Jesus, those are the people that you want to listen to.

And the desire for being fruitful is a good one, as we talked about in the beginning, be fruitful and multiply. That’s why talk. King through these these beliefs we have that are limiting us from maybe wanting God’s blessings are important because they do hamper fruitfulness. And fruitfulness is important to care well and not just have quantity, but quality in our approach to to raising our families.

You know, I think of when I think of wisdom and I think of talking to older people, one of the beautiful things when you’ve had a lot of experiences, you have hindsight, right? And God’s Word is so good. He says that a woman is going to forget the pain that she experiences in childbearing after she receives the blessing of having a baby in her arms. You can go look that one up. And that was just one of the scriptures that I’ve always meditated on in the midst of the third trimester and having labor pains and things. And I just you know, it is true. There is an element of that that you do forget and it’s a good thing some of the things that you forget. But in that, I just want to remind you that nine months is a short period of time to experience pain or even suffering. If you do and I do a lot of the time with HCG, I’ve had quite a few pregnancies where I’m vomiting 14 times a day and getting IVs for hydration, all kinds of things. And I had to preach to myself this one truth. And maybe this is an encouragement to you too, because this is a biblical truth. Nine months is a short period of time for another person’s entire life legacy and their eternity. And so that puts things in perspective, which is what you get when you talk to older people.

You get perspective. I know that there are many times where I had five kids under seven and I was like, Oh, I don’t know if I can have any more. And I would go into church and I’d have all the kids think of Mom’s night out walking in, although I didn’t have mascara there because I never had any kids trying to put my mascara on for me. But I remember feeling overwhelmed some of those Sunday mornings, bringing kids into church and an older lady or an older gentleman just going, Oh man, you have such a beautiful family. I wish I would have had more. And I heard I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard that from older people in their 60s and their 70s, their 50s 40s even where we we were like, wow, why are why is this the resounding message that we’re hearing from people who have gone before us who say they had four and wish they had more, or say they had, you know, two and wish they had a lot more. And and I just think that it it takes humility to be able to go, oh, is that going to be me? I don’t want to live with regret and and really like evaluating that whole side of things, too. It’s a fun thing to challenge yourself to really just challenge yourself.

And in my experience on the fruitfulness side is that fruitfulness came along the journey of being open to having children. And of course it was one of one at a time and we took it one at a time. And we had times where we, you know, prayerfully hoped to have a break from having children and God gave us breaks and things like that. And and that was good because it’s also important to pay attention to your bride’s health. And and she’s had some health issues and so forth. In fact, there was a time where it was very close call on deciding to stop or not. I believe this was at 4 or 5 kids when she was in bed, bedridden. It was very it would have been very easy for me to make a decision at that point that, you know what, this is going to be very hard for Angie to have any more children. But we saw her health restored. We waited. We didn’t make decisions. We worked hard at it. We worked hard at it in hopes that we wouldn’t have to stop because our heart was towards what God wants for us and and the blessings of children and not thinking about ourselves too much, but instead going, okay, is it possible for her to have more children? Is God going to heal her? Let’s let’s see what’s going to happen, but let’s also wait and make sure she doesn’t get pregnant for a bit to see what’s going to happen. And having that consideration for your brides is so important.

I just even think of first Peter chapter three. Look at verse seven. It says, To live with your wives in an understanding way. And then it says at the end of that, let your prayers be heard. And I think this is one example, right, where you’re living with your wives in an understanding way, understanding what does get a woman pregnant, the process that God designed and prayerfully and fasting for a time and being really considerate and not being selfish. Yeah. I really think is the message, right? Like that. There wouldn’t be a selfishness. And for women sometimes I just also want to say sometimes and I’ve been this way where I’ve desired to have another baby and I have had to submit to my husband in his protection of me because sometimes women just have that like really strong desire to have another baby in their arms. But their husband maybe sees that there’s harm or there’s certain things and the Lord might be speaking to him. And so this is a very, very delicate personal decision is our point in bringing up these little like, nuance. A. Goal situations and circumstances, and we get that there can be thousands of them out there. Like I even think of the woman who maybe was diagnosed with cancer and and is trying to fight cancer. That might not be the best time to get pregnant, wouldn’t you agree? Although God can do miracles during those seasons, we’ve heard amazing stories of women who were pregnant and diagnosed with cancer and how God protected the baby and healed the mom.

And we but we’ve also heard really hard stories of the complete opposite in those situations. And so I just I’m bringing it up because there are so many situations in life we cannot compare. We cannot just make flat statements that are blanket statements or blanket beliefs that are for all time and all circumstances, all the time. Because the truth is, is God’s going to humble us by allowing us to walk through some hard things like we’ve experienced so that we would grow, be stretched, be challenged, and our beliefs became more refined. We became more refined and more aligned in walking through the persecution. The suffering, the lack of support, the health issues, the financial burdens, all of those things challenged us to grow and we did grow in it. And the wisdom that we gained from it was that you really do need to surrender all to God and let him be the designer. He’s the designer. And that means that sometimes it’s a no. And that means sometimes God does have a blessing when you would least expect it.

And sometimes you need to make a decision to withhold and and to wait and to allow your bride to be healthy. And you have to make decisions together while you’re you’re surrendered to the Lord. And every family looks different. And so if you have, you know, a few kids don’t judge people like us that have nine and we don’t judge you that you have a few. I think the goal here is that is harmony with one another is that we’re not being overly judgmental and people can be within a church with a few children, with people with a large family, and there can be harmony there. You know, it’s so important. And I think that that is the overall message here.

You don’t all have to look identical. Unity is not uniformity and or conformity. It’s it’s loving one another. And even just being even in disagreement on disputable issues that are not salvation issues and this is one of those that is not a salvation issue. I just want to say that God cares about our hearts, you guys. And so finding people who are going to encourage you, to challenge you, to look at your heart and look at your, you know, are you in alignment with your spouse? And then the other thing that we have encouraged people time and time again that is so important that you hear this, we have two warnings. And one of those warnings is to not make permanent decisions in fear or during times of transitions, specifically postpartum or when you’re pregnant or going through a job failure or job loss, change of jobs change moving. Make sure you’re in alignment is the other thing, right? We that was one of our commitments is that we were never going to make a decision if we were not in alignment, whether that was moving forward or not moving forward. And I do believe that God has blessed us over the years because there are many, many times where I wanted a baby and Isaac wanted to be done or Isaac wanted another baby and I wanted to be done. I’m just being real honest. And but what we prayed for together was that God would bring us into alignment. And we walked in patience with one another, loving one another, praying for one another. And he always brought us back into unity.

And we just really want what God wants for our family. And that’s what kind of ruled over our hearts, even when we had those desires, is that we would be surrendered to the Lord. And he has a plan for us and we love our nine children. They’re incredible. And that’s true. Everybody always, always loves their children, right? You never have a child and go, I wish I didn’t have that one. That never exists. Right. And so we’re just we’re just really thankful that we’ve been prayerfully on this journey. And that’s the kind of journey you want, regardless of the number of kids you have. You want that marriage relationship where you’re wrestling with this together. You’re surrender to the Lord, you’re having conversations, open communication, and you’re not just doing things because of fear and selfishness and things like that.

That’s right. So we’re praying for you guys. We know the struggle because we have been in and out of that struggle over the 23 years we’ve been married. And and during that time, God’s taught us a lot. He’s humbled us a lot. And we pray that you experience the same because it’s really good for you. Hey, thanks for listening and being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. Go to be courageous Ministry org for more biblically based resources. Ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible be courageous app community for believers.

Also we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program.

Isaac and I created a powerful biblical curriculum. Here’s how it. Each week we release a video session with a downloadable parenting packet to make it easy for you to incorporate those teachings directly into your parenting.

This is an incredible self-paced program where we cover everything from tending to their hearts, handling obedience to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private group and the Be Courageous app, live webcasts and direct access to us.

If you’re interested in joining our next online parenting mentor program, secure your spot now at be courageous ministry org. That’s be courageous ministry.org.