{"id":159,"date":"2026-07-20T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inabiblenearyou.org\/?p=159"},"modified":"2026-05-23T21:28:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T01:28:35","slug":"the-fertility-cliff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inabiblenearyou.org\/?p=159","title":{"rendered":"The Fertility Cliff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There is a remarkable trend in the world that cannot be ignored and that is people are having less babies. Some say that this is a bad things and still other say that this is a good thing. It depends upon your world view. If you look at the numbers, the developed nations of the world are having the fewest babies, but the lesser developed world is also down as well. Now everyone has a reason for this. Some blame things like technology like social media, the internet, cell phones and AI. Others believe that it is due to a sense of weltschmerz<\/em> within the human population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those not familiar with the term weltschmerz, it is literary term\/concept that came out of the romanticism period of europe in the 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> centuries. It is the combination of two German words, world and pain. It sums up a feeling of depression and apathy because of the condition of the world. For those who fall into this group, fears about: climate change, rising housing costs, political instability, technology, the economy, and general chaos in the world make the world a place of too much anxiety to deal with much less bring a child into. In other words, the world is a terrible place, why bother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Certainly, there are aspects of these that may be true. Many are finding comfort and distraction in technology and it is easier than investing time and energy into relationships and real people with all their problems and issues are messy. Here in the U.S., and for better or worse, we have more people in therapy than any other time in our history. So certainly, there is much in the world to despair about, some of it is not as big as we make it out to be. But the world has always been the world and people are people. So I think that like many things in life to point to one cause is a foolish endeavor because it is really a combination of many different factors coming together to a point that can be seen and measured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there is one point that I think we often times neglect. We may neglect it due to the secularization of our culture and society or technology or all the other things going on in the world. But this simple fact is that many in the world do not look upon Children and the having of Children as being a blessing. Many view Children as a burden, a legal obligation until they are 18 and then to be sent out into the world come what may. But before we get to that, let us look into creation and see what God has commanded up to do. We find this in Genesis 1:26\u201328.

[26] Then God said, \u201cLet us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.\u201d

[27] So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

[28] And God blessed them. And God said to them, \u201cBe 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.\u201d (ESV)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God commanded humans to go forth and be fruitful and multiply. This can only be done by having babies. But in the view of God and the Bible, this command to have dominion over creation is more than just having babies. God created families because people do better when they are connected to others especially in the family unit which begins with the union of man and woman in marriage. To see this foundation, we can look to the creation account in Genesis 2:20\u201324.

[20] The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. [21] So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. [22] And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. [23] Then the man said,

\u201cThis at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.\u201d

[24] Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (ESV)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is clear that the husband and the wife are the foundation of the family as created by God. Out of that union, comes children and the Bible tells us that contrary from what our culture and society says that Children are a blessing. We find examples in the Bible like, Psalm 127:3\u20135

[3] Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
[4] Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one\u2019s youth.
[5] 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. (ESV)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

or in Proverbs 17:6

[6] Grandchildren are the crown of the aged,
and the glory of children is their fathers. (ESV)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christ in comparison of the sorrow the disciples will have that will soon be joy, he uses the most basic of human experiences and that is bringing a child into the world. We find this in John 16:21

[21] When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. (ESV)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Babies and Children are a blessing from the Lord, but what if we as a people, culture and society look at having babies as a burden? Burden may be a bit incorrect, perhaps an impediment to doing the things we want to do. I remember when my wife was pregnant with our first child. I was talking to a coworker and when I told them we (my wife and I were having a baby, his response was, \u201cOn Purpose?\u201d He was dead serious. It never occurred to him that two people would willing desire to have and raise a child. Looking back on it, I could see how it would shock my coworker. This person was used to doing what they wanted when they wanted. They could party every night and do whatever they wanted and they were not \u201cchained down\u201d with a baby and the thought of the loss of that \u201cfreedom\u201d was incomprehensible to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things are not any better now days. In an era of DINKs, for those not familiar with the term, it is Dual Income No Kids. You can find these people on all social media talking about their lives and how they live totally for themselves doing whatever they want whenever they want. They talk about how great their lives are without kids and this leads many to believe that Children are a burden. You cannot be your true self or do the things you want or to be the person you want because a baby would get in the way. And so it becomes easy to look at a baby as nothing more than a clump of cells and make having a baby a choice to be aborted when this person is not convenient in the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having children means sacrifice. It means growing up and taking responsibility for your life and the life of those dependent upon you. Children means setting aside your desires and wants and looking to someone else\u2019s. In our skewed and sin filled lives, this does not seem appealing. It is messy and time consuming and expensive and demanding and filed with tribulation. I will not deny that for one minute. But having a child and being a parent is one of the most wonderful and rewarding things that we mere humans can do. Children are truly a blessing from the Lord and they do change the course of our lives. But I can speak from my experience, that I would not trade these human beings that the Lord gave me, for anyone or anything else in this world. I would hope that more in this world would in turn see this for themselves, that children are a blessing from the Lord and not a curse that the world makes them out to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a remarkable trend in the world that cannot be ignored and that is people are having less babies. Some say that this is a bad things and still other say that this is a good thing. It depends upon your world view. If you look at the numbers, the developed nations of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,9,7],"tags":[152,145,151,154,153],"class_list":["post-159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-family","category-christian-living","category-christian-world-view","tag-babies","tag-bible","tag-children","tag-population","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inabiblenearyou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inabiblenearyou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inabiblenearyou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inabiblenearyou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inabiblenearyou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inabiblenearyou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/inabiblenearyou.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inabiblenearyou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inabiblenearyou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inabiblenearyou.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}