Uneducated, Untrained, Unschooled, and Ordinary
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We live in a culture that bombards our children with messages…
Follow your passions and dreams. You can be whatever you want to be. You can do whatever you put your mind to.
But there is a cost, isn’t there? Because the vast majority of people don’t wake up one day with their dreams right there, waiting to be grasped.
You want to be that or do that? Be at the gym before and after school. Practice makes perfect. Join the all-star, travel teams. Know it all. Be in school all day, then go home for more homework. Join the extracurriculars. Get the grades, win the awards, pursue the best college, apply for the internships, and fight for that job.
Mom and Dad, work until you’re exhausted and weary to pay for it all. Run around like crazy. Compare your child to others. Someone is always doing it better. Another kid is always better than yours. Yours might not be measuring up. Try harder. Do more. And if not…
Well, you failed as a parent. You didn’t give them the opportunities. You didn’t teach them the right way or enough. You set them up to fail in this culture. You will be that parent that has an adult still living in the basement.
Discouraged yet? I am. As a homeschool mom of four children, I have been afraid that I’m going to mess my kids up. It’s an honest fear that many homeschool parents have, and it’s the reason why many do not homeschool their children. We fear we won’t be able to teach them all they need to prepare them for this life. I also struggle with comparing my children to their homeschool peers, more so than those that attend traditional school since the playing ground is more even.
The first four years of the twins’ life had been the most difficult teaching my two older children. Many days I woke up thinking, “What am I even doing? I’m failing at this.” We had been in survival mode, and it seemed like we would never switch to thriving mode.
Now I can look back and see the grace and faithfulness of the Lord. Every day His mercies were new. Through the chaos, grief, and trauma of raising and losing our children, the Lord has revealed to me what is most important for my children, and I have made significant changes in how we implement school in response. I have written before about this, and the Lord shows up again to confirm this truth through His Word…
“When they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13, HCSB)
The NIV says “unschooled, ordinary men.”
Peter and John, two of the greatest apostles of Jesus Christ, were uneducated, untrained, unschooled, ordinary men. When they were young Jewish boys, they were not formally trained on the Jewish law, the Pentateuch, by Rabbi teachers. Rather, they grew up trained to be fishermen, most likely by their own fathers, which is exactly what they were doing when Jesus called them to follow Him.
Yet, here they both are after Jesus died, rose back to life, and ascended into Heaven, testifying to the life of Jesus and the good news of salvation. They later went on to write parts of the New Testament. The educated, trained, schooled, extraordinary men were amazed of their knowledge and speaking ability.
So what made the difference?
“They had been with Jesus.”
I have said it before, and I’ll say it again, because I need to hear this truth over and over to silence the lies and distractions of the enemy:
The most important thing we can do, give, teach, and display to our children is everything and anything about Jesus Christ, the Bible, and the gospel truth. Nothing else should take precedence, because nothing else is eternal.
The best education, the greatest grades, the scholarships, the sports abilities, and the best-paying jobs are not sinful endeavors in and of themselves, but these also will not instinctively make our children effective for Jesus. We can kill ourselves trying to give them the best, even if our motive is godly. We want our children to accept the gift of salvation and live obediently, displaying the fruit of the Spirit. We want to prepare them to do great works for Jesus. Yet even the missions trips, church activities, and service projects alone won’t accomplish this.
There is a warning for the American Church like the church of Ephesus in Revelation:
“I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil…You also possess endurance and have tolerated many things because of My name and have not grown weary. But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first.” (Revelation 2:2a, 3-4, HCSB)
If our children have not been shown what it’s like to be with Jesus or have not been with Jesus for themselves…At worst, we will have set our children up to leave the Church’s hypocrisy and chase and love the world, and at best to work for Jesus and people, but not love Jesus Himself.
They will endure and labor and strive for good works, but eventually be burnt out and want to give up because their motive has been for fruit, progress, success, and something to show for at the end. “See, God, all that I have done for you?!” (Hmm…sounds a lot like us parents? Preaching to myself here.) Rather than their life be an overflow of their love for Jesus and their relationship with Him, no matter the actual job and labor they do and the possible outcomes.
What if Peter and John abandoned the love they had at first? The only abandoning they did was their lives for the sake of spreading the gospel, because being with Jesus changed everything. How did being with Jesus make all the difference? The power, the strength, the effectiveness, and the impact of Peter and John did not come from being well-trained, educated, schooled, and having a high status; it came from the power of the Spirit.
The American Church has not only lost its first love; it has lost its dependency on the Spirit. The Spirit does the work of sanctification and supplying the power to carry out our God-given abilities and callings. It does not come from our children’s disciplinary work ethics. Nor their stellar resumes. Nor the job they will get when they leave the nest. Nor the salary they will bring home to provide for themselves and their families. When these end goals take precedence of our focus and time, we are depending on the wisdom and strength of ourselves.
We also may be showing our children that following the culture’s way of educating and living is more important than following Jesus at all costs. Are we asking God if His will for our child(ren) is a path that looks completely different than the world around them? Or are we raising our children to only follow the “tried and true” steps to get them where they “need” to be? What if we are unintentionally contributing to a culture that demands comfort, safety, and security?
Like in anything we do, it’s ultimately about the deeper motive and what we put our trust in. As a parent, we must ask ourselves, “Why?” “What is the end goal or purpose?”
Why is this so important to my child and me?
Why are we doing this as a family?
Why am I putting so much pressure on my child to get the best grades, make that team, get all the experiences available?
Why is it important that they receive all the education and training in this particular area?
Has this become an ultimate in our life that we cannot give up?
Did your answers expose your motives deep down? For example: “My child must get a high-paying job or else…” Or else what? They won’t make it? They won’t live a comfortable, easy life? They won’t have a consistent paycheck?
Before you call CPS on me, I do teach my children all of their required school subjects. And I never wish a hard life for my children. But after many of Brett's and my adult life experiences, and as our kids are getting older, I’ve been pondering these things and taking my questions and doubts to God and what the Bible has to say. There are commands to teach and train in excellence for the glory of God in everything. It would be sin to neglect preparing our children in how to navigate the life ahead of them. Work is a God-given, necessary thing, especially for our boys to be able to provide and lead their own families. And let’s be honest, we really don’t want them living in our basements.
But what I also find in the Bible is that our culture’s priorities are out of order—Jesus is only an add-on; an accessory. Almost like an insurance policy if things go wrong with our plans, rather than the Master and Lord of our lives. Our hope is in the wrong things—a comfortable, safe, secure, and easier life. Our trust is in a fallible, inconsistent method that changes with culture’s demands—you can do all the “right things” and still not measure up. Our theology is not lining up with our living—we don’t truly believe that relying on the Spirit’s power is enough. The result is setting our children up to depend more on their own abilities and strengths and trusting the culture’s way of doing things no matter the cost, which ultimately will be setting them up for spiritual failure. {See Revelation 2 again.}
Culture will always change; God’s Word and His ways are immutable. This gives us hope! We don’t have to succumb to the American standards of raising our children; God’s standards are higher and even better for them! If our hope is in the Spirit’s wisdom, direction, conviction, spiritual gifting, and power, then we don’t have to fear, compare, demand, and strive. We teach our children how to trust in God’s truths and hear the Spirit’s voice—He will lead them where and how to go! Practically how this plays out from one family to another will look very different. This means we need to be on our knees in desperate prayer more than signing up our children for all the learning experiences!!!
After reading several biographies and autobiographies of people who made an eternal impact for the gospel, I noticed that they didn’t look like the world nor did they look like the current Church. When I have put each book down after reading the last page, I know the difference. They had been with Jesus. They didn’t just know about Him, they knew Him like He was One with them. They didn’t abandon their first love, and out of that love and through the power of the Spirit, God used them to do extraordinary works.
The pressure is off, Mom and Dad. We don’t have do it all. We don’t have to make sure they know it all. Stop listening to the culture’s voice that has made its way into the Church, thinking that the only way our children will survive or thrive is to do it like everyone else. Put Google and social media away. Open up the Bible and teach them who Jesus is. Show them what it looks like to be with and love Jesus more than anything in this world. Then watch the Spirit work…
As with Peter and John, people around your children will be amazed not because of their knowledge and abilities, but because…
they have been with Jesus.
Books that have recently influenced our parenting and schooling:
Elisabeth Elliott - The Shaping of a Christian Home
Gloria Furman - Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full
Sarah Mackenzie - The Read-Aloud Family
Helen Smallbone - Behind the Lights
Christina Hoff Sommers - The War Against Boys
Paul David Tripp - Parenting
Durenda Wilson - The Four-Hour School Day
Durenda Wilson - Raising Boys to Men