Job 5:25

You shall know your seed is great,

   Your offspring like the grass of the earth.

The man who God reproves is still the topic of the passage. God reproves the man who is after His own heart. The promise here is not that just anyone or even any one person will have great offspring that number more than the blades of grass on the earth. In multiple places, God makes big bold promises to those who follow Him. If only we can follow Him.

Options for “seed” included “descendants”, “children”, and “offspring”. Children is the least applicable due to its meaning of one generation, but with grass in the next stitch, seed won out for balance. Alternatives for “great” were “will be many”, “plentiful”, and “abundant”.  The others seemed to only a numeric tone, and I preferred the quality aspect lent by great.

The only other suggestion for “offspring” was “descendants”, and I felt offspring was a little more generic and plantlike than descendants. There were no other viable options, so this felt a neat little verse.

My oldest swam her last high school swim meet today. In the first event she did great and got under a time (a significant number) she had been shooting for. It was good to see. She has more swimming and more competing to do, but there is something special about the end of a high school sport era. My kid is a great kid and has had a huge week of confirmation of this. I never remember having a ego driven need to have a bunch of kids or even to have great kids. Once I did have a kid, I wanted her(them) to be their best, but I never assumed greatness as a need. God has built each of us for a set of tasks and sometimes it means kids, many kids, or even great kids. Either way the bottom line is that children are a blessing from God and come with a lot of tasks to accomplish along the way. I feel blessed. Now if I could just figure out how to get free labor before they make like a tree and leave. (Humor)