Children are A Treasure

Children are a treasure from the Lord. You might not have heard the song but I suspect you have heard similar phrases in the past. I have and at first, I wondered… so where is MY blessing?

I was so glad to stumble upon this again as I was going through Beth Moore’s Stepping Up bible study. I was brought to the actual verse Psalm 127:3 -

“Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him.” (NIV).

I wanted to look up the verse in its original language and I found them at “the Mamre Institute”. Unfortunately, my PC (and perhaps yours, too) cannot handle the Hebrew writing, so just click on that previous link to see the Hebrew version. Their English translation of Psalm 127:3 was similar:

“Lo, children are a heritage of the LORD; the fruit of the womb is a reward.”

Looking at it more closely, it was pointed out that children are A heritage, A reward. Even if the song also stated that children are A treasure, my mind seemed to be taking it as children are THE treasure, THE heritage, THE reward. Let’s look at the verses again, this time with emphasis:

“Sons are A heritage from the LORD, children A reward from him.” (NIV).
“Lo, children are A heritage of the LORD; the fruit of the womb is A reward.”

Sons or children are A blessing, indeed. However, Psalm 127:3 was NOT saying the children are THE heritage, THE reward,THE treasure! It is also NOT saying that if we are childless, that we are not rewarded. Let me quote the Stepping Up bible study material here as I cannot state it even more frankly:

“God grants us heritage in numerous ways. His rewards come to us in various forms….We maybe rewarded bountifully in other areas we’ve not yet fully enjoyed because we somehow feel condemned or overlooked because we don’t have the reward we want.”

Sounds familiar? It does to me. I can recall times that I suspend my joy on other aspects of my life because my present childless condition or fertility treatment was causing me anxiety or grief.

What then is THE heritage. THE reward, THE treasure? We go to Genesis 15:1 -

“I am your shield, your very great reward.” (NIV)

This was God’s promise to Abram (later renamed Abraham) in a vision afterwhich Abram sort of protested that he was childless. We know the rest of the story, Isaac was born from Sarah and Abraham in their old age.

Isn’t it great that children are A blessing from the Lord but isn’t it even more comforting and marvelous that God is THE reward. God is our very great reward!

God is good, all the time!

Meanwhile, here’s the version of the song. Enjoy!