It has been said that a nation’s most valuable resource is their children. Now while some may want to argue that point, it only takes a moment or two to realize that without the raising of a ‘next generation’, that nation will cease to exist. Many countries around the globe today are starting to sit up, alarmed... and are taking notice of declining birthrates while they try to figure out ways and incentives to turn this trend around. Our current administration has floated the idea of paying people to have babies.

I'm guessing that many of us have had young children on our minds/hearts this past week, and tragically...for all the wrong reasons. There is something about hearing of the loss of life and suffering when young kids are involved...that just make it hard for us to think straight. And I don’t believe I have what it takes to be a part of what many volunteers are doing now in central Texas...going out to ‘search and recover’. May God extend grace, strength, and comfort to them all as they will see things no one should have to witness.

As the death toll numbers increased from this catastrophe, along with the numbers of people still missing, I was struck with how easy it was to lose sight of all the other people who were swept away by the floods as our attention was caught up with those missing kids from Camp Mystic. We mourn the loss of all life, but when it’s kids... I just have no words... tearful sigh...

Yes...when we see or hear about children suffering in the most tragic ways...it has a way of painfully grabbing our attention; as well it should. But...at the same time...

....we humans can sure convey conflicting messages when it comes to how we feel about our children and the supposed value we place on them. Most have heard the story in the news, by now, from a few weeks ago about the 5-year old girl who fell off the Cruise ship from four flights up. Regardless of the details over how that even happened, we all know about the dad who immediately jumped over the rail himself into the ocean to rescue his daughter; and thankfully that story had a good ending (last I heard). What parent...could not identify with that dad in how he responded. It’s what any loving parent would have done for their child, yes?

And for all the talk when it comes to discussing the things we would do for our kids...or ‘what would we Not do...for them?’...children remain one of the largest exploited groups of humans on the planet. I won’t delve off into the numbers of children who are abused physically or sexually every year; or talk about the kids who are abandoned, taken advantage of in various labor forces, or ‘trafficked’. And dare I even bring up the numbers of children in the womb who are aborted? But we sure have a funny and conflicting way of demonstrating how we ‘value’ our most important resource.

I’m going down a bit of a different path today with my post, and it will spill into tomorrow’s message as well. But the question needs to be asked: If the cries of a suffering child no longer move us...what hope do we as a human race have left? What has happened to our hearts? Jesus offers up one reason why hearts ‘wax hard’ or grow cold- it’s because of the increase of lawlessness , or ‘sin’ (Matt. 24:12; 1 John 3:4)

The writer of Hebrews warned that when we fail to ‘take heed to the things we have heard, we may ‘drift away’ (Heb. 2:1). He then follows up that warning in the next chapter explaining how an ‘evil heart of unbelief causes us to depart from the living God’ (3:12). Before you know it... the ‘deceitfulness of sin will indeed creep in and harden us’ all...(3:13).

This probably explains, in part, why God made such a point, repeatedly... in trying to warn us what would happen to our children and grandchildren...if we failed to ‘pay attention’ to His word, His law...His commands. They weren’t ‘threats’ that He issued...they were warnings offered up in love and compassion.

As I mentioned yesterday, God’s vision for what He wanted to do with His people, and their offspring was always looking to the future generations. It began with Adam and Eve – ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (Gen. 1:28). When God called Abraham out of his homeland, there was a promise to ‘bless his seed’ and talked of how they would outnumber the stars in the heavens and the sand on the seashore (Gen. 22:17).

We are all familiar with the passage from Jer. 29:11 where God conveys His feelings for His people...even when they fall in to sin, rebellion, and eventual captivity: “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

But God’s promises of blessings that were the benefits of walking in covenant with Him, always came with ‘conditions’. This should not surprise any of us as we all know there are ‘conditions’ that come with anything that is good – be it a new marriage or new job; yes...there are benefits...but!

Abraham’s seed did indeed multiply, yet over time, (400 years)...they ended up in bondage, becoming slaves down in Egypt. Then God heard their cries....and got involved (Ex. 2:23-25; 3:7-8).

So we know the story of how God raises up Moses to lead them out of Egypt and had a good place He wanted to lead them to, after a short passage through the Red Sea, and then the wilderness. Would you take a look at Exodus 23 and read vs. 20-33. So much in there to ‘unpack’, but please note vs. 25, where God not only promised to ‘remove sickness from them’, but He also promised that NONE of them would ‘suffer miscarriage or be barren’. Isn’t that interesting... the matter of importance we see God placing on the future hope of children.

Yes...Jesus has a heart for children and desires for them all to ‘come to Him’. (Matt. 19:14; Mark 10:14). And yet...it is us adults...who ‘ought to know better’...that often get in the way of this happening. I pray you will join me tomorrow. You don’t want to miss it.