The Blessings

In Genesis 1:22, we have God’s first blessing, the fertility of life. God blessed them when He spoke the words, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” God goes on to bless all sentient life.

Bless can mean different things, but here it means fruitfulness, the power of reproduction. They became life-giving. God gave them life and now they are able to pass on that life. That is a divine blessing from a divine origin.

My heart saddens for those who want children, but can not have their own. But maybe, God has put an extra amount of love in your heart to adopt. There are so many children that need a deeper love. And should this love stop with just one child?

In Psalm 127:5 these words appear; “How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them (children); They shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies at the gate.”

I heard a sermon in the 1980’s, that there would be five arrows in a quiver. So that is five children. Now, a respectable woman would not be at the gate, so I assume, this would be the sons. So five sons plus whatever daughters you had before or between the five sons. I failed here. I had five daughters.

Who was at the gate? Sons, who were judges. Judges were at the gate and they defended people. So the sons were to defend their father (parents) from their enemies.

How do we apply this to today’s world? Could it mean, we need to fill our quiver with enough children to care for us in our old age. Then the burden would not be on just one or two children. Now having one doctor and one lawyer in the children would be an added blessing.

I am so blessed that my children would fight over who would take care of me. They all want to do so. For the present though, my Lord Jesus Christ and my husband will take care of me.