“Fear: False Evidence Appearing Real” - Unknown

 "...Further, we warn that the disintegration of the family will bring upon individuals, communities, and nations the calamities foretold by ancient and modern prophets.

We call upon responsible citizens and officers of government everywhere to promote those measures designed to maintain and strengthen the family as the fundamental unit of society."

- TheFamily: A Proclamation to the World

What an introduction to this course. This week in my family relations class we studied and discussed different trends related to the family. For example, I studied some research that impacted individuals’ decisions on the size of their future family. Why would that be significant though? To each their own if they want to have children, and who am I to tell someone they should have more than one child. However, I have always believed that the family is ordained of God. This teaching is found in The Family: a Proclamation to the World. This proclamation also teaches that,

“The First commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife. We declare that God’s commandment for His children to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force. We further declare that God has commanded that the sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.”

            So it saddened me to learn that because of many studies, one in particular by Robert Elrlich, The Population Bomb could cause so many to fear large families. However, not only for themselves, but this studied enlisted so much fear in individuals they would look down and even hate those with larger families.

There are a lot of facts that could be thrown around about this topic and there are also a lot of opinions that go around. But I don’t really want to discuss the flaws and facts about this study. Instead I want to talk about some of my thoughts on the reactions and effects of these types of skewed studies.

 For a while the classroom felt like we were just picking at studies to prove how they were misleading. Which don’t get me wrong I found it very interesting. Especially when they were widely known studies that seemed to include some misleading information. But I didn’t really get much out of the lesson, except maybe make sure to really check out all the facts before forming an opinion and throwing it in other people’s faces. That was until someone mentioned how a lot of the cases, we were studying how they are connected. The connection was fear.

Most of these articles and studies we had to read were based around people acting on their fear. And like Shakespeare said we hate that which we often fear. What a wonderful combo to motivate us, hate and fear. Well, maybe more destructive than wonderful. Although every will fall into fear’s trap, something that has always given me comfort can be found in the biblical scripture 2 Timothy 1:7 “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” There are a lot of quotes and fancy things I could say but the fact is their fear doesn’t come from God, and fear shouldn’t force you to do anything. What do you want to motivate you? Love? Joy? Hate? Personally, I don’t want it to be anger or fear. I want to be motivated by happiness, and fun, by things that will strengthen my relationships rather than tear them apart. But that’s the trick isn’t it... how do we avoid being overrun with fear? I don’t think there is one set answer but one major thing that has worked for me is my love for and trust in God. There is comfort in knowing absolutes, and no greater absolute that when you trust and follow Christ you can find safety, peace, and daily joy.