As I sat down to work on our plans for our next learning term, the Holy Spirit nudged and said, “It’s time to put all the planning guides away.” Although I love reading and learning more about the ways we’ve chosen to incorporate in teaching our children, it was time to stop relying on the plans of men, and to trust God to lead me in HIS plan for our children.
It was not by coincidence that a friend and I visited back and forth throughout the day about some questions she had that were causing frustration from a lack of understanding complex methodologies. It was further confirmation that I would only bring myself under bondage to try to continue to push further in this direction at this time. I didn’t need more “ideas” and a purer, “higher” path. I needed to continue to walk in the Freedom & Simplicity™ He has time and again shown me, and I try to convey to others.
Read the end for the third confirmation….
Are you feeling burdened in planning your studies? Do you feel inadequate? Is it just not coming together? You can’t understand it? Here’s what I wrote my friend:
I don’t think God’s way should be hard, nor impossible to understand. He tells us to come to Him when we are heavy laden; and to take His yoke, for it is easy and His burden is light. I do believe teaching our children requires work and sacrifice, but it should not produce confusion and a lack of understanding. Our generation has to pay a higher price since we are laying the foundation. This sacrifice is primarily Rom. 12:1-2, that of renewing OUR minds to a Biblical Worldview, that requires more study from us. Hopefully this will be MUCH easier for our kids – growing up with a Biblical worldview to pass on to theirs. I believe we need to build great libraries of learning for our families/communities once again. But let’s get on to LEARNING, not just ALWAYS learning ABOUT learning!
It IS a renewing the mind thing. But does God really want us to work and strive and stress for YEARS trying to figure it out BEFORE we can help our children, I think not. He wants us to impart ourselves and His Word into them. AND to grow year by year as we do it, but not to be UNABLE to do it at all for YEARS. Not all moms have been given great academic capabilities. Would they EVER catch on to how this should ll fit together? Does that mean God doesn’t want those moms to teach by Biblical principles? That he wants them to send their kids to institutional schools? I think not. That is setting up the same mindset as government schools, that only the “experts” are qualified to teach.
Does God want us to only teach History or Literature or whatever one “subject” by His principles, until we can get the hang of moving ALL of them over to His way – maybe when they’re in high school we’ll be ready to add Math or whatever? I think not. As I’ve said, I will never be a Master Teacher in every subject. I am a MOM with a LOT of other responsibilities too, but that does not negate that I am the BEST, God-appointed teacher for my children.
It is not His will for you to be under such burden over this. God does not say that whom He equips He calls, but rather, whom He calls He equips. The things He has planted in me, that I have internalized , that I need to do this year, will be brought to remembrance by Holy Spirit. Anything not – I don’t need, not for now anyhow. He who called me has prepared me. I have not been negligent in listening to Him, nor in studying. Anything I can read or learn now WITH UNDERSTANDING (and throughout this and every year), will be applied as God directs (His way is not burdensome!)
What makes sense and fits, I will incorporate. If not I won’t. I just add things as I see helpful. Otherwise I continue on the path God has set me on. I can’t teach what I don’t know/understand. I grow each year, but it is in what God is doing in me – not in a complex, hard to understand program. I think there are many valuable things to be gleaned from Biblical based programs. But I think the complicatedness and confusion is not from God.
I am not saying to throw out what you have learned from others. I’m saying what doesn’t make sense and fit together, don’t worry about now. Perhaps someday it will. But if it doesn’t now, without burden, then it isn’t for now.
And now for my third confirmation, that this is a timely message some of you need to hear now. The new Homeschooling Today magazine just came. Jennie Chancey had an article, From the Pen of an “Unqualified” Parent, that was very relative to this topic. She talked about some, even within Christian Education, who deem parents unqualified to train their own children if they haven’t had the proper rigorous training in “their” method.
She said, “Where is the scriptural exegesis to demonstrate that parents are unqualified if they do not measure up to a human educational standard? … Lest anyone misunderstand me, I am not advocating ignorance or a deliberate dumbing down of educational goals. … but goals [of high objectives] must be subordinate to God’s revealed will in the Scriptures. ….God’s Word can “thoroughly equip” each of us for “every good work” (which would include the training of our children). …. Surely it is a better goal for the church to equip all of the saints (no matter what their educational attainments) to train their own children biblically and with humility.”
There, it is said, what we are dealing with is nothing but educational pride, religious eduational pride – high and lofty, “I’m qualified and if you don’t understand you aren’t.” You thought perhaps Paul wasn’t God-inspired to write, “Knowledge puffs up”? As we continue to learn, it is a danger we must all watch out for. “God does not share His glory with men, no matter how sound they belive their instructive methods may be.”
I’ll close with one more quote from that article: “But let us not promote human standards and methodologies and declare all who cannot reach them “disqualified”. Dear parent, take heart. It is God who qualifies you to teach your children, not the understanding of some method – good as that method may be.
And thanks L. for our great dialog on keeping Freedom & Simplicity™ from turning into bondage through complicated confusion.
