Birthcontrol- Part 3/ Wednesday Wifehood

Wondering how we got started on this discussion? You can go to the beginning of it here.

Ok. Sorry it took so long, I haven't forgotten or ignored your question. It's been a busy few days because of my birthday (tons of family stuff) and then my car decided to finally kick the bucket the other night.... at 9:30 PM.... in the middle of no where. Well, 10 minutes from my parents house.

I had to call them, my dad and brother came out, all three of them (my husband too) were out there looking under the hood, under the car, trying this and that while I sat in the car feeding my daughter cheerios so she wouldn't have a complete melt down. Then it wouldn't go anywhere and my dad and brother were talking about a trailer and chains and pushing and oh boy! Any way, thankfully my husband got it to work (not well) long enough to get it to my parents house, where we spent the night, went to bed around midnight to get up at 6 so my mom could drop us off at home on her way to work and now I'm spending way too long on a VERY slow ebay trying to find a decent car we can afford and praying for God to bless this ugly situation somehow..... ANYWAY... :) The fun of life and learning to trust God!

Qusetions: What leads your husband to believe the story of Onan has anything to do with birth control? Given that children are a blessing, and that Jesus should have lordship over our lives, what about those principles leads you to believe birth control is inappropriate?

Answers: I talked to my husband after that post and even I learned more about why we don't use birth control. LoL. Good to review I guess. He said that he doesn't fully go along with the Onan story being about birth control, just that someone had thrown it out to him. (Clarified for me!) The principle there is pleasure without responsibility (which I can see) and that the idea of the story is about not taking responsibility. Any, my husband said that it's shaky ground to site that story and that it's not his main reasoning.

Now I'm trying to remember what all he said! LoL. Bear with me. My husband said that a big part of it has to do with giving God control of your life (as earlier discussed). As Christians, when we choose to follow Christ, we lay our lives down and take up our cross to follow Him. Even though we believe we've laid it all down when we get saved, in reality there's often areas of our lives that we haven't given up yet-we just aren't aware of it. The key is to stay sensitive to the spirit and continually check your actions and attitudes. My husband says that sometimes "God puts His finger on something" meaning He wants us to get rid of it or give it to Him. Easy example: we are constantly going through our movie collection. There's often movies in there that were once allowable to us, but God revealed to us that it either became an idol or was simply not right in the first place. By staying sensitive to the spirit of God, we have an active, growing relationship with God and we grow continually as Christians.

The same idea applies to all aspects of our lives. My husband and I were going to do "natural" birth control, but "God put His finger on it" and told us to give it to Him. So we did. We took another step towards giving God complete control of our lives. If you think about it really, God is the one who opens and closes the womb. I've known several couples who desperately want a child, but can't for several years and then suddenly get pregnant one day. I also know several who were using "birth control" and still got a surprise. I guess it's just knowing and recognizing that God's ultimately in control anyway and not fighting it.

My husband also says that using birth control is bondage. It's not the natural course of things and is often frustrating or sometimes can be harmful (pills!) Instead of living in the bondage of worry, frustration and possible damage to your body, we live in the bondage (freedom!) of Christ. We are bound to His will and desires for us and we experience liberty and freedom and don't have to worry about the outcome. He'll take care of us.

Lastly, we view birth control as part of the world system. Our society today says we're irresponsible if we don't use it and condemn ourselves to poverty and put our children at risk of growing up poor. As Christians we aren't supposed to be a part of the world system and do everything our society says we should. It's one of the things that sets us apart as Christians-many of the things we do go against the flow of society. Christ said they hated Him and would hate us too. I often question "Christians" that get along well with the world. Often times it takes compromising to get along with the world. Our society views children as a nuisance that need to be controlled (even to the point of abortion!) and that our lives/career paths/selfish desires need to come first. Because after all, don't you deserve it?

I'm not totally opposed to birth control-if God tells you to use it. I'm not sure if He does tell people to or not-haven't experienced that yet. But I do know it grieves my heart when I hear Christians saying "After we've been married 2 years, we'll have 2.5 children 2 years apart and then I'm done. No more." I just want to ask them where God is in all of their plans. They'll pray to Him to bless them with a new house/car/etc but don't want to involve Him in any of their plans for their lives. I could be wrong, but this seems pretty selfish. Jesus gave up His life for us to the point of death and we can't even give our plans to Him? Any way, I'm done for today. Feel free to ask anymore questions. Gets me thinking about stuff I haven't thought about in a while! :)