You and Your Child

THE CHILD: A PRODUCT OF DIVINE INTELLIGENCE • Where is the child from? Almost two centuries ago, an academic controversy swept the world as liberal materialistic philosophy collected data to give man a queer view of his origin: that man is the product of evolution – a cosmic crap-game. The word of God frowns at this assertion with repugnance. When it comes to reliable information about man’s origin, the word of God surpasses every other wisdom. The Bible contends that man is a product of divine design. The Holy Scripture teaches that every human being is a product of divine intelligence, love and power beyond his comprehension. We are not a product of Mother Nature, neither is our emergence on earth by accident as the evolutionist would want us to believe. We are not created by chance or by fate. We are the outcome of a divine conceptualization – sent into the time and space bound world with a definite purpose. • God created your child and sent him into this world to perform a specific purpose. Our creator is a pre–existent personality imposing order on creation; giving meaning to love, truth and dignity. The Bible claims that God has an intimate awareness of every individual before conception and birth. It underlines that all human beings are divine forethought and not an after-thought. We existed in God’s royal register of decision before our parents ever thought of having us. God made us according to His own desire, under His inquiring eyes, and by His own power. Our marvellous bodies, our rational faculties and the composite nature of our being (soul and body) were all pre-planned by God. • Before your child was ever fashioned into human, God pre-planned all his days and all his experience after birth are under God’s sovereign control. Even though Professor M. Mattheus–Roth, of Harvard University claimed that individual human life begins at conception, the Bible maintains that we existed in God’s book of life before conception. This is clearly expressed in Jeremiah 1:5. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I set you apart” Jeremiah 1:5. Before conception, each of us existed as an interdependent life. We shared in the life of the body of our parents. The sperm (the male reproductive cell) is genetically identified as the cell of the father’s body while the ovum (the female egg) is genetically identified as the mother’s body. Physical life begins when these two come together and “becomes one flesh” Genesis 2:24b. We are told by experts that for conception to take place, one out of the over five hundred million spermatozoa released from the father’s body must contest for the right of entrance into the mothers’ virginal and swim through the mother’s uterus and out through her fallopian tubes to fertilize the single egg that has broken out of the shell of her ovary. Each of these over five hundred million spermatozoa contesting for the right of life has individually reached the endpoint of its maturation. They are destined to fertilize an ovum in order to live or die if they fail. In the heat of this rigorous contest, your child emerged a winner when it succeeded in fertilizing its mother’s egg (the ovum) which led to a fusion. The 23 chromosomes of the father’s sperm united with the mother’s 23 chromosomes of the mother’s ovum forming 46 chromosomes cell. The process was completed. A new living being was immediately created. • For your baby to defeat over five hundred million contestants (spermatozoa) and emerge a winner is an evidence that his life contains what his generation needs Your baby became a being who has never existed in the history of the world and will never again exist. A being who is no longer at the end of the line but at the dawn of existence; a being completely intact and containing within himself the totality of everything he or she will ever be; a being who will immediately begin to move forward in an orderly process of growth and maturation, destined to live inside the mother’s womb for almost nine months and as many as 100 years outside. • You are a personality that has never before existed in the history of the world, and will never again exist in this world after your demise. You are unique. You are the original. Do not live a Photostat life. Be yourself! We have learnt that God is responsible for the biological formation of the child. After the child has been formed in the womb, God does not push the boat of the child’s life to take its chance on the streams of time. The creator is directly involved in the growth of the foetus (the baby at its embryonic stage) and protects it as it grows. This suggests that God cares for the physical frame of man. Psalm 139:13 reveals that God exclusively knit together the child’s vital organs including the heart, lungs, liver and brain. He also made the “bony substance”, that is the skeletal system. “For you created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb” Psalm 139:13 God did all these skilfully and protected the child till the ninth month. In response to God’s divine concern and care for the growing child in the womb, the Psalmist burst out into singing in verse fourteen. “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful and I know that full well.” (NIV) The Psalmist is remembering his days in the dark womb of his mother. He is saying, “Lord, you knew me as the one who formed me, but I cannot begin to comprehend this creature you have fashioned. I can only look upon him with awe and wonder and praise you.” • Your life itself and that of your children call for celebration. If you think you have nothing to celebrate in life, why don’t you make it a point of duty to celebrate yours and your children’s birthday? After conception, the Psalmist tells us that during the nine months period of gestation, God clearly watched over the child’s growth. In Psalm 139:16, we find these words: “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (NIV) The phrase “your eyes saw...” in the Hebrew, language carries a meaning that goes beyond God merely looking at the embryonic baby in the womb while it develops. It purveys the idea of an architect who painstakingly watched over every detail of construction to make sure the builders adhere to his blue print. • For God to personally supervise your child’s formation in the womb shows that your baby is special. Shouldn’t we parents devote an equivalent attention to our children? Every individual child is so special that God personally supervised its formation and growth. God’s loving constant gaze was on your child as a tiny human when it planted itself in the nutrient lining of mother’s womb. At day, ten when it sent a chemical hormonal message into its mother body to stop her from menstrual period and later when it caused the mother’s breast to enlarge in preparation for its arrival, God was there watching with keen interest. At 18 days and 21 days, the child’s heart began pumping through a closed circulatory system. At 40 days, its brain began to function. In the sixth to seventh week, the child started moving. 1 None of these and other details, no matter how minute they were, escaped God’s attention. • Is it not refreshing to know that while you were still in your mother’s womb God constantly monitored your development in the dark womb in order to ensure that your formation falls strictly in consonance with His pre – determined plans and purpose for your life?