Think about how you would finish the following sentence: “Children are…” Truth be told, some of the parents of young children might finish it in a way that wouldn’t be heartwarming. Having learned to function in a state of semi-exhaustion from keeping up with the hectic schedules of today’s kids, those parents might say, “Children are draining, demanding, needy, expensive, ungrateful, and hard.”

Such parents feel like the ones in that story about two teenagers who were talking. One teen said to the other, “I’m worried. My father goes to work every day to keep a roof over my head, food in my stomach, clothes on my back, and a car under me. When he comes home, he mows the yard, trims the hedge, and pays the bills. And my mother cooks all our meals, washes the dishes, cleans the house, and does the laundry.” The second teen said, “So what have you got to be worried about? It sounds like you’ve got it made.” To that, the first teen replied, “I know. I’m worried they will try to escape!”

This kind of thing can keep a parent’s attitude toward a son or daughter from being what it should be. I’m reminded of another illustration about a dutiful dad who was easily annoyed and cranky. Someone asked his little boy, “Does your daddy have a den?” The boy said, “No, he just growls all over the house.”

But how does the Bible finish the sentence: “Children are…”? We find that answer in Psalm 127:3-5. Those verses say:

Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. (K.J.V., emphasis mine)

For years, as Tonya and I were raising our two sons, I kept a certain printout taped to my desk, just below my computer monitor. It was a copy of a word of personal testimony written by a man named Anthony Mullinax. It was entitled “If I Knew Then.” Mullinax writes:

There are so many daily joys for the parents of young children: pushing their swing, bouncing them on your knee, playing horsey, shooting marbles, playing baseball, etc. Then one day it dawns on you that you aren’t doing those things anymore – they’ve outgrown it. You realize that somewhere back there was the very last time. If I knew then what I know now, I would have savored the last occurrence of each of those childhood games a little more. I would have lingered a little longer at the swing, bounced them on my knee a little longer that last time. When we played horsey and that inevitable, gleeful plea came, “One more time! Daddy, one more time,” I would have crawled across that floor on my hands and knees until only sheer exhaustion made me drop.

I kept that piece where I could see it because I wanted to make the most of my boys’ childhood days. Through all the time consumption, energy drain, financial outlay, and downright aggravation, I wanted to keep in mind that those “little boy days” wouldn’t last forever. And, sure enough, they were over far too quickly. Now all Tonya and I have left of them are the memories and the videos.

The Hebrew word translated as “Happy” in Psalm 127:5 is esher. In the King James Version of the Bible, it is translated as “happy” about 20 times in the Old Testament. Even more frequently, however, it is translated as “blessed.” Furthermore, anytime esher is translated as “blessed,” the pronunciation should be “bless-ED” rather than “blest.” You see, esher conveys the idea of abiding in a continual state of blessing rather than merely experiencing a one-time blessing. In other words, it’s better to be “bless-ED” than just “blest.”

I should point out, though, that being described as esher (“bless-ED”) doesn’t always equate to being “happy” by our standards of happiness. For example, Job 5:17-18 uses esher in reference to the one who is suffering the chastisement of God. Along these same lines, the Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words says the following:

One’s status before God (being “blessed”) is not always expressed in terms of the individual or social conditions that bring what moderns normally consider to be “happiness.”

The point is that even though being a parent makes you “bless-ED,” it doesn’t always make you “happy” in terms of what we call happiness. No, parenting can be rough, and it comes complete with plenty of happiness-dampening difficulties. To do it right takes a lot of hard work, devotion, time, energy, and money, and there will be days when you won’t be able to honestly give your sweetest finish to the sentence, “Children are…” Nevertheless, there’s no higher calling in the world than parenthood, and may all of us who are parents redouble our efforts to rise to the task of keeping our “arrows” straight.