Who do you go to when you are struggling with the fact that you have not had a child? Do you go to God or man? Are you trying to make it happen in your own strength? Every challenge we face is to draw us to God not away from Him. If we are drawn away from Him, we need to check the condition of our heart.

1 John 5:21 says Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts.

More often than not the men in the Old Testament had more than one wife. In most cases one wife was unable to conceive while the other was able to conceive easily. One example is in Genesis 30:1-3 Now when Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said to Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die!” ² And Jacob’s anger was aroused against Rachel, and he said, “Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” ³ So she said, “Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, and she will bear a child on my knees, that I also may have children by her.”

These passages tell us that Rachel went to her husband (man) and then took things into her own hands (gave her maid to her husband). Was going to man and taking it into her own hands the best solution? Did that move God to open her womb?  God eventually remembered Rachel and opened her womb but not until seven children later; two by Rachel’s maid, two by Leah’s maid and three by Leah.

As frustrating as it is not to have been with child and given birth, the only one who can answer our why is God. Our husbands can’t nor can our friends only God can. One of the exciting things about Rachel’s story is that she gave birth to Joseph. Joseph went on to become the second most powerful man in Egypt. None of the children born to Leah or the maids did anything as amazing as Joseph.