What a Chance We Take

In the book The Promise by Chaim Potok that I mentioned a couple of days ago, one line towards the very end of the novel really stuck out to me.  The main character Reuven went through many challenges in the novel as he tried to make his own path and determine where he stood on difficult issues related to the Talmud and its study.  His ultimately came to believe in a certain method of reading and understanding the Talmud that his father proposed. But his father was verbally attacked by other Jews for his positions and a book he published caused enormous stress for his father and for him and divisions arose and his father ultimately left the school where he was teaching because of the fighting.  The whole series of events caused enormous pain for Reuven, and it gave him negative feelings towards his father (though he loved him deeply at the same time) because of what his father's theological stance put them through.  After the main conflicts were resolved in the book, this brief exchange is described: "Haven't you hated me during these past months," he asked softly.  I hesitated. "It wasn't really--" "Why didn't you tell me Reuven?"  I looked at him and did not say anything.  "What a chance we take when we raise children," my father murmured.  "What a terrible chance."  His father realized what his actions, though they were the right ones, had put his son through and how close he had come to perhaps putting a permanent rift between them.  With the myriad of challenges we face and so many things out of our control in this life, indeed what a risk we take as we seek to raise our children in this wicked world.  

       The scriptural story that comes to mind as I think about this is the one of David and Absalom. When David committed his great sins relating to Bathsheba, he was given this prophecy: "Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife" (2 Samuel 12:10).  Part of the fulfillment of that prophecy surely included what happened to Absalom.  He ultimately was killed in battle, and this is what happened when David found out: "And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Samuel 18:33).  He wept bitterly for the death of Absalom--even though Absalom had been his enemy, and surely he would have agreed that it was a great risk indeed to have children.  Of course, for David part of that risk was the risk that he (David) would not be true to his own covenants with the Lord, and that caused great problems to come upon his children.  When we choose to have children we take the risk that we might make serious mistakes related to their development.  The other major risk is that despite all of our efforts our children, like Laman and Lemuel, reject the Lord.  We do all that we can, but ultimately it is simply a risk that we must take.  It's no wonder that it would be Lehi who would tell us that if Adam and Eve had had no children they would have never known joy or misery (2 Nephi 2:23).  Lehi certainly experienced great joy because of the righteousness of Nephi, Sam, Jacob, and Joseph, but he was nearly brought to his grave because of the choices of Laman and Lemuel.  If we take the risk, children will always bring both great happiness and terrible pain.  

            Ultimately, our mortal journey in and of itself is a risk that our Heavenly Father took with us.  But knowing it was the only way for us to progress in the eternities, He gave us the opportunity to come here and make our own choices.  And even though He does everything in His power to bring us back, there is the risk that we don't return to His presence.  We can trust the Lord that if it was worth the risk for Him to send us here, it is indeed worth the chance we take for us to bring His children into the world with all of the sorrow--and joy--that this will bring us.