Parents and teachers walk a very fine line with their students/children. We strive to teach them to become independent and think for themselves. At the same time, we want them to obey us. It's the balance of two ideologies - much like the gravity well.
Have you ever seen the gravity well? There's one at the St. Louis Science Center and one at the Butterfly House. My husband is very drawn to them. It is fascinating: two laws at work. There is the law of inertia (an object in motion will continue in motion unless acted upon by an outside force) and gravity. So the coin starts at the top of the well. As gravity pulls it towards the bottom, its inertia keeps it moving in a circle around the well. Just before it drops, the coin spins absolutely sideways. Sometimes it will spin there for a long time (really just several seconds)! Finally gravity wins out. O.K. So as our children/students become more and more independent, we still want them to obey us. Only their obedience changes form too. It goes from, "Make your bed" to "Are you treating your sister like you should be?" Eventually we step back as parents (or teachers) and let them make their own way. We're still there to help them, guide them, counsel them, but we want them to make good life decisions and to be life-long learners. Neither one will happen if we don't let them become more independent! But the twist is this: in learning to be independent, to be able to do whatever needs to be done on their own, eventually the goal is that they would choose to become obedient to Jesus Christ. In the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:5: "We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, . . ." Our goal, then, in the end, is to mold children to become independent and then obedient to Christ.
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We all like to win. Arguments. Baseball games. Board games. Sweepstakes. We all like to win.
But sometimes the victory doesn't seem very important once we've achieved it. For instance, I couldn't remember who won the World Series a couple of years ago. So I went to the internet and printed out the whole list of teams who competed in the World Series dating back to the beginning. Not only was I surprised at who had won, I was surprised at who was playing against the winner in each of the contests. The victory just wasn't all that important. (If it was, I certainly would have remembered more details - any details!) It's funny because I seem to spend so much of my day telling my children to quit fighting over stuff that doesn't matter. But it matters to them. And they want to win - all the time. So how do you get across to them that they need to focus on what is really important? You see, right now, it's all about them, their wants and desires, their ego. I want them to focus on the needs and feelings of others - considering others more highly than themselves. The reality is that you can't win every game. And maybe it wouldn't be good for you to win every game. But, in the end, you have to win the big battles. In terms of Revelation 2 and 3, you have to be an overcomer. Part of being an overcomer and winning the crucial battles is knowing which battles are important enough for you to spend your energy. You can spend and waste your energy on battles that don't matter in the end (like the World Series?) and then not have enough energy left to fight the battle against the pressures of this world to pull you away from a relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ. There's so much here about which we can talk. Suffice it to say, for today, that I want you to win. I want you to learn to be a winner for all the right reasons. What reasons could those possibly be? I'll talk about that next time. We all need some encouragement from time to time. It doesn't take much. Sometimes just a smile is enough. Sometimes it's a phone call. Sometimes a simple comment that lets us know our efforts were recognized and appreciated is all we need.
Some days we need more encouragement than other days. Sometimes we're very weary (like when we've stayed up too late watching the Cardinal's play-off game!) and need a simple mental pick-me-up. Sometimes we look at the list of jobs we must get done and think we'd rather go back to bed and pull the cover over our heads for the day. That's when a timely comment can keep us going and give us the extra energy to tackle that list. So, if we know how much we need the encouragement from others, why aren't we more diligent to give it to others? Exhorting and encouraging is Biblical! One of my favorite verses is Hebrews 10:24-25: "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." There are a couple of things here. First, we need to spend some time thinking about, considering, how to encourage other people. Secondly, it's hard to encourage people if we don't see them. So go to church! And thirdly, there's an implicit warning here that as much as we need the encouragement now, there's coming a time when we will REALLY need it. So let's begin the habit now. You know the old saying, "Practice makes perfect." Make it your goal today to encourage one other person! That wasn't so hard! Good job!! |
AuthorCynthia Saladin is a homeschooling mom of three, with a passion for teaching them about God and having a personal relationship with him. Archives
November 2023
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