Selfish or Wise?

Christianity Today's women's blog, her.meneutics, recently ran an article by Ellen Painter Dollar titled, "Why We Don't Use Natural Family Planning." She received lots of responses--some positive, some negative. Some of the "nays" came from commenters who believe people like her are being selfish and refuse to face what's difficult to follow God by allowing Him to decide how many kids they should have. Such accusations evoked a response from me. Here's what I wrote: I am so glad to hear that Sam Torode told The Times, “I am out of the business of trying to tell people what they should do." This is a 180-degree change from when he was featured with my co-author (of The Contraception Guidebook) on the FamilyLife Today radio program*. At that time the Torodes’ “NFP is the only way” approach struck me as arrogant and ungracious. This more humble approach seems more in line with the Spirit of Christ on such issues.I received a call several days ago from a guy trying to figure out if he should have a vasectomy in preparation for seminary. His wife has been told she should have no more children, and the combination of his ministry goals and her health issues suggested to them that a vasectomy may be a Spirit-led decision.I think it’s interesting that in 1 Corinthians 7, the apostle Paul suggests that some may choose to remain single for the glory of Christ. I think the same applies to limiting family size. Colossians also comes to mind: “Do all to the glory of God.” A missionary friend in China has limited his family size to three children, because he and his wife have already exceeded what is culturally acceptable there, and they could “lose a hearing” with their audience if they have more children. Couples going to seminary often avoid pregnancy so they can give single-minded devotion to preparing for ministry.People who say it would be tough to have another child may not be at all selfish or wrong-minded on the issue. They may be good stewards to “count the cost” before building the house.*When gathering the hyperlinks to post this on my blog, I discovered the FL Today radio program has since remixed the shows to delete the Torodes' involvement.