We are in trouble – BIG trouble! This article in the Omaha World Herald a few days ago (12/21/2021):
US population growth at lowest rate in pandemic’s 1st year by Mike Schneider – AP
U.S. population growth dipped to its lowest rate since the nation’s founding during the first year of the pandemic as the coronavirus curtailed immigration, delayed pregnancies and killed hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents, according to figures released Tuesday. The United States grew by only 0.1%, with an additional 392,665 added to the U.S. population from July 2020 to July 2021, according to population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The U.S. has been experiencing slow population growth for years but the pandemic exacerbated that trend. This past year was the first time since 1937 that the nation’s population grew by less than 1 million people.
“I was expecting low growth but nothing this low,” said William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. “We have an aging population and that means fewer women in child-bearing ages,” Frey said. “We see younger people putting off having children and they’re going to have fewer children.”
While the “pandemic” surely has had an impact, the trend for years has been below the line of sustaining a population. This was written in 2011: As noted above, the US birth rate has been declining slowly over the last several decades. Today, the US fertility rate needed to maintain the current US population is 2.1 children per woman during her lifetime. Yet it now stands at only 1.9 and is falling, so we’re going backward.
As a nation, we are “ending” – not reproducing enough to even maintain the population for the next generations. We are in trouble! We need to be reminded of what God says about population:
God’s charge to the first man and to the first man after the reset (Noah) was to fill the earth (Genesis 1:28, Genesis 9:1). And who says what is “full”? Bill Gates? the W.H.O.? the UN? science? popular opinion? Who?
Remember:
God opens wombs! Genesis 29:31, 30:22; Isaiah 66:9 And closes wombs! Genesis 20:18, I Samuel 1:5
David – Psalm 119:93, You have given me life.
Ecclesiastes 5:18, …toils under the sun all the days of his life which God gives him
Jeremiah 1:5, Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you;
Psalm 139:16, Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.
AND!!!
Psalm 127:3-5, Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
Jesus warned that someone who professes His name but refuses to “bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matthew 7:19). We must be careful to not call bad or wrong what God calls good (Isaiah 5:20). Children are to be desired, cherished, and trained – yours, theirs, any! The rearing of children to responsible adulthood is a goal requiring years of sacrifice and sometimes pain, yet is God’s will.
Talking about bearing children is always a minefield experience because there are those who greatly desire children but are unmarried or infertile and can’t. Then there are those who had horrible home experiences and can’t imagine bringing a life into being to suffer as did they. There are those who are adamantly convinced that the world is grossly overpopulated and some of those thus troubled are next of kin and you have to live with them! Nevertheless, children are God’s creation and His project!
The goal is to have children and rear them toward God, asking Him to touch them with saving grace. It is the task to rear them to love and to serve God all their days and that they in turn rear up children who will likewise embrace and serve Jesus. It is the mission to rear up children who will serve their fellow man as did Jesus who went about doing good (Acts 10:38). Children are God’s will!
a PK Musing 
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