Control

I have been thinking about an interesting paradox over the last 2 weeks: control. Everyone wants it. We want to be able to control our kids, we want to be able to control the economy, we want to be able to control our own finances, we want to be able to control our own bodies, and we want to be able to control our own families.

But we also want to be able to buck responsibility. We do not want to take responsibility for our kids if they misbehave, and we don't want any part in the blame about the economy our the trouble our own finances are in. If we run into health problems or unexpected healthcare expenses we expect someone else to foot the bills, and we deny it if people in our family are having problems that we don't deem "acceptable."

And we all do it. It is human nature to not want to be wrong, to not want to admit sin, to not want to have to face our own inadequacies or poor decisions. We want someone else to bail us out, to put a bandaid on it. To make everything all right.

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world."

Isn't it interesting to look at these things from a Biblical perspective?

CONTROL: God's wisdom is much greater then ours. "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, the intelligence of the intelligent I will frusterate." He created the world, he set processes in motion and he LOVES the people that make up the world. We don't want to give up control because we think we can do it better. Our decisions, we think, are so much better then our childrens', our government's, our families', our doctor's. And even God's. But we are wrong. They are not better then God's.

RESPONSIBILITY: God's word clearly reminds us that he made us to be responsible beings and he put humans in a role of responsibility on the earth. He insists (1 Timothy 5:8) that we take responsibility for our families. He expects us to take responsibility for ourselves by owning up to our shortcomings and asking forgiveness both from God and from other people. We are responsible for nature and created things and most importantly we are responsible for telling others the way to Heaven.

This brings me to my controversal topic: Birth Control. This issue, like so many others for believers, looks at the balance between control and responsibility.

There are believers whose opinions run all across the board on this topic. Let's look at the opposites, with the knowlege that there is an inbetween.

The CONTROL camp: This is also known to many as the "quiverful" camp. These are the people that believe that all, or nearly all, birth control is unbiblical. They think that married people should have sex and trust God to decide when the babies come and how many of them there should be. They want GOD to control the whole situation and don't want to hinder him in any way. They base their views on all the verses about Children being a blessing (Psalm 127:5), on Onan's sin (Genesis 38:8-10), and on the command to "Be fruitful and multiply," (Genesis 9:7 paraphrase). They believe that God will provide for the family that he gives us (Phillipians 4:19).

The RESPONSIBILITY camp: This is the view that is pretty much what the rest of the Western world thinks. They have a responsibility to manage their families (and some will go on to say that we share a responsibility to control the earth's total population). They have a responsibility to themselves and their spouses not to get too stressed out or too financially strapped (1 Timothy 5:8). They have a responsibilty to their other children that there will be enough time, money and attention for each of them (Ephesians 6:4). They have a responsibility to their relationships that as newly married people they need time to get to know one another without kids.

I have been reading blogs and articles about this stuff and it is starting to bother me. The CONTROL camp seems to forget about the verses about responsibility and the RESPONSIBILITY camp seems to forget about God providing for our needs and about Children being a blessing.

So what conclusions have I come to? More soon!