In the sight of our loving Adonai and God, the value He places on them is beyond our human ability to calculate. In my many years of working in the restoration of the lives of Peru’s rescued female children, I have known this. But my understanding of this fact has continued to deepen during the past recent years that I have been studying Torah.
But, how is it possible to simply begin to understand the great value that He has placed on these very young lives?
First of all, we must understand our Creator’s plan for mankind.
This obviously begins with children who will later-on will produce life themselves. In my case, I had to learn the mindset of the ANE - Ancient Near East (I am still working on this) – those to whom the word of God was originally given in addition to taking into account their particular world viewpoint. I had to learn that it is nigh impossible to understand the tenor and flavor of His written word through the lenses and filters of our western Greek-Roman mindsets. These Western ways of seeing the world and God have dominated our theological paradigms over the past 1,700-1,800 years. On top of this, in order to accomplish this goal of understanding more thoroughly His plan, it was essential to begin unlearn many years of false theological reasonings, conclusions, and theological prejudices that had colored 58 years of my belief system up to that point. Now, I am older and in a race to learn as much as I can as long as I am able to.
Secondly, is the value of a family – taking into account what is written in Psalms 68:5,6 “God in his holy dwelling, is a father to orphans and defender of widows. God gives homes to those who are alone…” CJB
One author that I really admire is Dinah Dye. In her book “The Temple Revealed in Creation”, she explains very well that, to the ancient world, temple building, creation, and the cosmos were essentially the same and they were modeled after God’s image – just as we, as human beings, are.
Dinah goes on to state that: Creation was the act of building, and the Creator was the wise, knowledgeable and discerning architect. This pattern is found all through the creation week – heaven and Earth, day and night, waters above and below, earth and sea, light and dark, Adam and Eve. When male and female elements join together, they form a house. Every human family is, therefore, a temple in miniature created in the image of God. A house/temple is defined as a husband and wife who together produce new life. The purpose of the family is to create new life, preserve it, and bring order and stability to the universe. Temples, in the Ancient Near East provided stability to the community in which they were built. The temple/house was conceived in the mindset of God.
The blueprint for a strong family is based upon obedience to the first commandment, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth.” (Gen 1:22,28). The creation story portrays building a house and then filling it. There are so many examples of this in the Bible. You can simply look upwards on a starry night and see how our Creator has filled His cosmos with heavenly bodies. Boiling this way down to the individual family unit, it is so very essential that we fill our families - which are to be a micro temple and micro community of God - with all good things such as: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
As a result, the ideal is that the glory of God will fill the Earth and the human family will fill society with His values. As the Temple was to be a refuge from all the chaos of society, our families also are to be refuges for its members – a place of protection and an abode of the presence of the Ruach Adonai (Spirit of the Lord).
There is so much more that I can write on this very subject. This subject is very deep. But, keep in mind that our Creator works in patterns. What we can see with our eyes, and what is even way beyond that - which we cannot see with our eyes in terms of His Heavenly Temple and kingdom – He brings it down from the macrocosm to the small microcosm which we can see at the family level. From there, it then goes down to us, as individuals and to the special importance of a female, whose temple produces more life with God’s divine intent of raising her new lives (children) to personally know their God and Savior.
The hoped-for result will be that these children will thus participate with Him in His divine mission of extending His kingdom to the uttermost parts of our planet. This is where we, at Restoring Children International / Restoring Hope International Foundation come into play in our small role in participating with God. We have established a family wherein children arrive to us from temples of abandonment, neglect, abuses, etc… Some of them arrive to us without knowing who made the sun, the stars, nor our planet. Some know about witchcraft, but not the Creator. All they know is mistrust, pain, and just trying to survive all the while living within their confusion and pain. So, we have allowed our loving Adonai to carry-out His plan for these children as stated in Psalms 68:5,6. He is graciously using us to let our girls know that He is their true Father – that He will always care for them. He has placed lonely and hurting kids into a family unit that He started through us. And, our purpose is to model God’s plan and purpose for their lives through our home located in Arequipa, Peru.
So, in conclusion, what is the value of a child?
Well, in one of my personal contexts, I was once young and now I am much older. My circle of life will one day draw to a close. I have little doubt that I will have to give an account to Him about these very special resources (children) that He has placed into my hands for a few short years. Children are the future of our world. Our Creator is counting on all of us parents, future parents, and grandparents, to train up what are really His children in the way they should go for as long as we have breath. He is counting on us to very carefully teach them the constitution of His kingdom on Earth which is found in His holy word. If we do our job well - if we are successful in creating His kingdom’s mindset into our children, the ideal is that they, too, will replicate this same temple paradigm into their own lives and those of their own children. The ideal is that more temples will be created which will, therefore, positively affect our societies and world as we work together in cooperation with our Creator through Messiah.
A child is a very deep well that must be filled. Once a child has reached 4 years of age, up to 85% of his/her personality will have already been formed. We must take this into account as we pour into them the fruit of the Spirit of God, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. It is at these young ages that they are able to begin to grasp concepts of God. However, it is so important that the foundation upon which we build our children’s lives be that which springs from the seeds of the fruit of the Holy Spirit / Ruach Kodesh – that which is imperative that we do sow into their lives. Is this divine job impossible? No. Not at all! Is it easy? Not at all either! Are we going to make mistakes in the process? Of course! But, at the end of it all, it simply depends on how seriously we take this divine challenge from God. It depends on how we cultivate our own relationship with Him and thus decide to root-out sin and selfishness from our individual lives and homes, as parents. In raising a family, there is no room for parental selfishness apart from simply needing some breathing space in order to take care of ourselves in the process. This is another good topic altogether. Additionally, there are times when we will need help from others in the journey of raising a family. Above all, we do need divine help from Adonai. Our lives before God boils down to choices. And, these choices are ones that even the youngest of our children will one day have to make on their own. Our job, as parents – as temple builders – are to keep our temples clean (home and personally) and to orientate our children towards making right decisions to live for their Creator.
May our loving Lord and God help you in your life’s journey of being a temple builder to His glory!
Rick DaviscourtBe a part of a greater cause and join the movement today! For every purchase you make, we donate 15% to the Restoring Children International foundation, an organization whose mission is to rescue at-risk girls in Peru and provide them with shelter and an education.