God's Faithful Provision

Series: Embracing God's Gift of Children

Leslie Basham: Ask any mom, children are expensive. But when God blesses us with children, He also provides the resources to take care of them.

Today is Friday, August 30; and this is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

Have you ever felt limited in the size of your family, by the size of your budget? Today Nancy will continue our conversation with the pastor's wife and mother of eight, Holly Elliff. She has seen God's faithful provision time and again. Let's listen.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Welcome back to Revive Our Hearts, Holly.

Holly Elliff: Thanks, Nancy it has been great.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Now just before the program today, when I told a friend what the subject was of this week's broadcast, they suggested that perhaps we should change the theme song this week to "Fools Rush In Where Angels Fear To Tread." Holly Elliff: I agree.

We have been talking, for those who haven't been listening earlier this week, about this whole subject of childbearing, and about the call and about the plan and about the sovereignty, in relation to this matter of children. And how is that different from how our culture views children?

I appreciate how honestly you have been sharing with us out of your own life about your experience. And not just your experience, but how you went to the Scripture as a young mother with four children at the time, and how God has directed you and your husband to a position of seeing that children were the gift of God, that they were a blessing. And you know when we talk about blessings, if God were handing out thousand dollar bills today, I can't imagine any one of us standing up and saying, "God, please, no more blessings. We can't handle anymore blessings."

But somehow we have taken the position, even in the Christian culture, that children are a limited blessing or a blessing that we don't want too many of. But you and Bill came to the understanding as you got into the Word, that you were to relinquish total control of this area of your lives, as other areas of your lives, to the Lord and to trust Him to determine how many children you should have.

So, you now have eight children. You do not know if God will or will not give you any more. But you shared with us yesterday that the freedom for you has come through trusting that God is going to make that decision and that what He does will be wise and good.

Now it is easy sitting here in this studio to talk about those things, but I am thinking about some of the questions that those who have been listening to this program may be asking. For example the woman who said, "We just cannot afford to have anymore children. My husband does not have a great income, and I can't work full time because I am taking care of these children. How are we going to afford having all of these kids?"

Holly Elliff: Well, obviously this area is very countercultural. And our culture is so centered on materialism, on what we need or think we need, on what we want. And what we have found when we have raised our children on a pastor's salary, and my husband does have a secure income...and we are very grateful for that. But even so, our kids do not have everything they want.

Really when you look at Scripture and what God says are needs; there are very few things that we actually need. There are many things that we want. So, what we tell our kids is, "If there is something that you really want, then you ask God to provide that for you." There is nothing wrong with your children seeing God as the provider of the good things that we have.

Even just a couple of weeks ago, as we thought about the financial needs for the wedding coming and our third child is in college. We are not people who started putting away money with our first child, to finance a college education. And so, we really have had to trust God, really encouraged our children to start praying for God to provide a certain amount of money.

And just this week we got a letter in the mail from an Aunt who had never had children of her own and just recently went to be with the Lord and provided the money we need for our son to go to college this year. And it will help pay for Jennifer's wedding. Totally out of the blue.

But it was so wonderful to go to our children and say, "Look at this! This is an avenue we never even dreamed existed. A woman who lived very simply, that chose to do this." And God has illustrated to our children, time and time again that when there are genuine needs, that He will meet those needs. It is very contrary to Scripture to assume that God would give us children and then not give us the ability to provide basic needs for those children.

Note: Special offers available only during the broadcast of the radio series.