People are choosing not to have children because the world feels too dangerous, too unstable, too broken.
That feeling is understandable. But it isn’t new.
Think about what Mary and Joseph were actually facing.
They were poor and living under a brutal occupying government that forced them to pay taxes. Then shortly after Jesus was born, King Herod ordered every male child under two in Bethlehem to be killed — because he heard a king had been born and wanted him dead.
Can you imagine the terror of the king wanting to kill your newborn?
Matthew 2:13
After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
And God knew it would only get harder. He knew Jesus would grow up to be arrested, beaten, and crucified.
But, he brought him into the world anyway.
Think about that.
God didn’t wait for safe conditions to send His Son. He sent Him into poverty, political violence, and danger — because the world needed light, not because the timing was right.
John 1:5
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.
Here’s something else worth considering.
Most children throughout history have been born into poverty. All of our ancestors were, by today’s standards. No running water. No hospitals. No safety nets. Generation after generation brought children into hard, uncertain, dangerous worlds.
They didn’t wait for stability. They couldn’t. But they also understood something we may have lost — that children aren’t just mouths to feed. They’re people who carry light forward.
Psalm 127:3
Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him.
The concern isn’t just personal. It’s cultural. When people stop having children because they’re afraid of the world or other reasons, the world actually gets darker — because the next generation of people who could change things never arrives.
Proverbs 17:6
Grandchildren are the crowning glory of the aged; parents are the pride of their children.
Matthew 5:14–16
You are the light of the world — like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.
No period of history has been without risk. No time has been safe. And at every point in that history, God’s people raised children — not because things were easy, but because they trusted that God would be with them in it.
Deuteronomy 31:6
Be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the Lord your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.
Raising children is hard. It has always been hard. But it is also one of the most significant things a person can do — for their family, for their community, and for the world.
God didn’t wait for easy. Neither did Mary.