By Steve Murphy
Men, It is Time
No. I am not saying that it is time to take up arms and defend ourselves. Nor am I advocating civil unrest or disobedience. These all have their appropriate time and place, but this is not it.
I am, however, advocating a sober look at the children we homeschooling fathers are training up. I believe that while we are on the right track, there is still a lot of track to cover. As a famous musician once put it, "We've only just begun."
Over the last couple of years, as I have pondered the path we are on as homeschooling fathers, these are a few of the questions that have been running through my mind: What are the preparations of life? What are we going for here? What will our children look like as they head out of the doors of our homes and into married life? If I could make a list of all the things I want my boys to be prepared to do by the time they leave home, what would I include? What about my daughter? Should we even make lists?
Homeschooling is Not Enough
While most homeschooling dads are content with their children being "academically superior to their government schooled peers," or kept clean of the "socialization of the world," I am convinced that we are not going far enough in preparing our children to be the men and women of God that they will need to be in order to be able to look a wicked world in the eye and show them the loving justice of God and His ways.
To do this, we must first soberly consider every part of every day in our home. We have to do the hard work of bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). Without this our children watch us and learn how to live haphazard, sloppy, pseudo-Christian lives.
"But, Steve, we're homeschoolers, isn't that enough? People already consider us a bit extreme and if we continue further down this road we'll end up losing the respect of our church, our friends, and our family."
The problem with that kind of thinking is that it gives credence to worldly philosophy to the exclusion of sound biblical teaching. The writer of Hebrews put it this way in chapter 12, verse 1, "Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us." And in Philippians 3: 13-14, Paul said, "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."
Have you ever heard the wonderful phrase "Always reforming?" Or maybe you have seen the Latin "Semper Reformanda" which means "forever reforming." While homeschoolers have taken a huge step in the right direction I believe it is only the first step of many needed steps which will lead us "further up and further in" as CS Lewis put it.
A Good List
One of King Saul's servants made a list one day. He came across a young man who had in many ways been prepared. He said, "I have seen a son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing [the harp], and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the LORD is with him" (I Samuel 16: 18). What better could be said of our children when they leave our homes than that the LORD is with them?
Homeschooling father, you need to be deliberate. Ask yourself the questions I asked above and come up with some answers, biblical answers. Sit down with your wife and listen to her thoughts. God has given us wonderful helpers to complete the picture and encourage us along the way. Then patiently, and with great determination, reach at any length for the prize of the upward call of God.
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