There is a reason my husband and I developed character curriculum, and that is because it is counterproductive to educate a fool, even dangerous. We found in raising our kids that making foolish decisions is something that doesn’t need to be taught. It comes naturally.
Making wise decisions, on the other hand, is a skill- the skill of applying wisdom to life’s situations. For this reason, when we saw character needs in our kid’s lives, we searched Scripture for an answer to it, hence our character curriculum from preschool through high school. Using Scripture to address those many character issues through the years resulted in practical studies in applying character to life. In other words, the curriculum we developed was in response to the character problems we saw in our kid’s lives and our own lives.
Character is, in essence, the very attributes of God. We’ll never choose perfectly here on earth, but we’ll choose wisely much more often if we intentionally cultivate it our everyday life, learn to think that way, and fill our minds with the Word of God so we can begin to exchange our thoughts for God’s thoughts as Isaiah 55:8-9 tells us. “ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Sure, we know we need math and English, spelling, history, science; but if we teach all this to our kids and fail to guide their character, we will have wasted our time and will have produced educated fools. The world already has too many of those. We need to train sons and daughters, instead, who look to God’s Word as having the answers for life and being the plumb line to align their lives by.
I would rather have a son who loved the Lord with all his heart, soul, and strength and who struggled to make a living, than a son who had a fabulous job, plenty of money, but no heart for the things of the Lord.
Why is it so easy then to stress over teaching the skills the world says our kids need than to put God first and let the rest follow? We have it backwards so many times. We need to evaluate our choices in light of eternity.
When planning for this next school year, put character and Scripture first. If you run out of time in a day, run out of time for Algebra or sentence diagramming, but don’t forfeit your kid’s character to fulfill the government school’s requirements for your son or daughter.
Our first priority is to raise sons and daughters who are skillful in applying God’s Word to the everyday decisions they make. It’s God’s Word, not common sense, that we need to instill in our children’s lives. Their time in our home is so short (even if it doesn’t feel like it today, believe me, it is.) If you raise kids of character, they will shine as lights in this dark, crooked world in which we live. They will become leaders of men because you will have trained them to look to the ONLY One who has answers for life’s difficulties.
That’s my main reason for home educating my kids!
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That is such a great reminder Marilyn. My husband and I stress so much about will are children know this in math or science and so on but totally forget that are whole reason for homeschooling are children was to have more time for our Lord. To teach them things form the bible and the ways they should go is much more important as they are young, but with the way the world goes it’s so easy to get blind sighted and what the goal was when we first started. Thanks for that reminder as we look to see what we want for the new school year to come. God bless you and your husband!