Christian Mission and Poverty

Chapter 6: A Protestant Response

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“Is not the body more than clothing, and the soul more than food.?” It is as if he were to say: Since children and “the fruit of the womb” are not for you to worry about, why then do you worry about the matter of securing and keeping possessions? For who can ever explain how it is that all the children of men are brought forth out of the flesh of women? Who has hidden such a multitude of men in that poor flesh, and who brings them forth in such marvelous fashion? None other than He alone, who gives children as a heritage and the fruit of the womb as a reward to his beloved (Ps 127:3) as in sleep (Ps 127:2). God bestows his gifts overnight, they say; and that is literally true. Here he compares children and people with the arrows in the hand of a mighty hero, who shoots his arrows whenever and withersoever he wills. Thus, we also see how God deals with us. Just look at how amazingly he matches husband and wife, in a way no one would expect; and how they attain to extraordinary stations in life for which they have not striven, so that men marvel at it. Generally, things turn out quite differently from what father, and mother, and even the person himself, had envisioned. It is as if God would confess this verse (Ps 127:4) in deeds and say: I will bring to naught all the counsels of men and deal with the children of men according to my own will, that they may be in my hand as the arrows of a powerful giant. Of what use is a lot of worrying and planning for our future when that future will be nothing other than Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth.