Our Children Are Counting on Us

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Our children are counting on us.

When I learned to drive, our family’s only vehicle was a Volkswagen bus with a manual transmission. While learning how to “keep between the ditches,” as Daddy used to say, I also had to learn how to shift gears. The Volkswagen bus had a four-speed manual transmission that folks called “four in the floor.” A tall gear shift came up from the floor to the right of the driver’s feet. The driver had to use the left foot to push down on the clutch and the right hand to move the gear shift: forward left for first gear, backward left for second, forward right for third, and backward right for fourth. No gear could be skipped. You began in first gear. When the car reached the right speed (which you learned to know by listening), you pushed the clutch and changed gears to second, and then pushed the clutch and changed gears to third. As you continued to increase the vehicle’s speed, you finally shifted into fourth gear. You stayed in fourth until traffic or your route caused you to slow down or stop.

In the middle of the gears was neutral. You always had to put the car into neutral when you stopped. Otherwise the car would lurch forward and the engine would die and have to be started again. When a traffic light changed to green or it was your turn to pull away from a stop sign, you started the gear shifting process over again beginning with first gear. You could press your foot on the accelerator with all your might, but the vehicle would go nowhere until you moved the gear shift out of neutral and into first gear.

Manual transmissions do have a neutral place. The world would have us believe that there is also a neutral place in education, in information, in learning of all kinds. I don’t believe that for a minute. Every teacher, every newscaster, every person who opens his or her mouth has a worldview. Every textbook, lesson, lecture, or news story includes a worldview. That worldview comes from faith in God or from the opposite of faith in God. There is no neutral ground in the world of ideas.

Our children are counting on us to train their worldview. Many worldviews exist in the world. None of them are neutral. Each child will ultimately choose his or her own worldview, but it is the responsibility of every Christian parent to train their children’s worldview to be centered in Jesus Christ.

Our children are counting on us to:

. . . bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4

Our children are counting on us to provide a childhood they can look back on with the memories Paul said that Timothy had:

. . . from childhood you have known the sacred writings
which are able to give you the wisdom
that leads to salvation
through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 
2 Timothy 3:14-15

Our children are counting on us to open our mouths to say the most important things:

Listen, O my people, to my instruction;
Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings of old,
Which we have heard and known,
And our fathers have told us.
We will not conceal them from their children,
But tell to the generation to come the praises of the Lord,
And His strength and His wondrous works that He has done.
Psalm 78:1-4

In Daniel 5, King Belshazzar had a fright when God sent a hand to write on a wall during his grand dinner. Finally the king called for Daniel to interpret what the writing meant. In this portion of Daniel’s interpretation, he condemned Belshazzar, telling him:

. . . you have praised the gods of silver and gold,
of bronze, iron, wood and stone,
which do not see, hear or understand.
But the God in whose hand are your life-breath
and all your ways,
you have not glorified.
Daniel 5:23b

Our children are counting on us to begin their education where God says it begins.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 1:7

 

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