Someone asked:
“You said God is intentional about every child He gives us and He needs us to prepare for them. Why do young teenagers get pregnant? God knows they are not ready for the child. Why does it have to result in pregnancy?”
When I say God is intentional about every child He gives, I mean that no child enters this world outside the scope of His knowledge or redemptive plan. Every conception, even when it happens under circumstances that seem wrong, chaotic, or premature, still falls under His sovereign oversight. Nothing catches God by surprise, not even teenage pregnancy.
However, this doesn’t mean God intended or approved of the sin or carelessness that led to it.
He is intentional about the child, not the circumstance. As late Pa. Kenneth Hagin rightly taught, there is a difference between God’s perfect will and His permissive will.
In His perfect will, a child is born into a home where both parents are prepared, emotionally mature, and spiritually grounded. But in His permissive will, He sometimes allows what He does not approve, because He honours human free will.
When we act outside God’s order, the consequences of those actions still unfold in the natural world, but His mercy steps in to redeem what was broken. God’s mercy does not cancel the principles He built into creation. He forgives sin, yet the natural laws He established continue to function.
Pregnancy is one of those natural consequences that follow an action. When two people engage sexually, conception becomes a possible outcome, it’s part of the order God designed. It may not happen every time, but the potential is always there. It’s like throwing something into the air and being shocked that it came back down, really? of course it will! That’s how God designed gravity to work.
In the same way, when we step into the boundaries of intimacy that God reserved for marriage, we awaken laws that were meant to function within a particular order. Sometimes conception may not occur, but more often than not, it will.
So, when a young teenager becomes pregnant, God did not plan the sexual act that led to it, but He allowed it within the framework of human choice. Yet, He still has a plan for that child. The conception, though unplanned by man, is not unredeemable by God.
Think of it this way:
• The act may have been a mistake.
• The consequence may feel like a punishment.
• But the child is never a mistake.
Every child still carries destiny. God said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart” (Jeremiah 1:5). That truth does not change because of the parents’ age or readiness.
Teenage pregnancy is a reminder of how human freedom and divine sovereignty coexist. God doesn’t stop being intentional because we act prematurely. Rather, He steps into our disorder to bring order. Many women who became mothers too soon later became voices of compassion, advocates for purity, or vessels through whom others found hope. That’s how redemption works….
You may have made a mistake, but God never does. Having premarital sex was a mistake, but that child is as precious to God as any other child born within marriage. God does not approve of sin, yet like any loving Father, He does not throw away the baby with the bath water. Instead, He cleans up the mess, redeems what seems ruined, and still cares without withholding love or purpose. Even when we miss the mark, His mercy restores order.
So, when the result of your action turns out to be a child, do not despise that child or see him or her as punishment. See that child as the gift he/she is. Having received forgiveness from God, take the next step, seek His mind, His thoughts, and His plans for that child. Then run with it.
That child’s life is still full of purpose, and God the Redeemer is still writing a story that will bring glory to His name.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11)
The message is clear👌🏾