Midweek: School Is in Session

I am a lifelong learner. I give tons of credit to my early elementary teachers who made their classrooms a safe place, a place of wonder and discovery. I'd like to think my love for learning has been passed on to some of our children. One is enrolled in college courses despite having multiple children at home. One devours all genres of reading and digital material. And our youngest absolutely loves school! FULL DISCLOSURE: It's the structure he loves. But when not in the classroom, when walking about town doing errands or taking a detour through the park, he is as attentive to my teaching and as inquisitive as any child could be. And, as a former homeschooler, I try to teach as we go.

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture:

And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Can you see it? Can you picture, quietly walking along, maybe dismantling a stick or piece of grass, talking with your child about Noah's obedience or Paul's tenacity in serving the Lord? This is what we as parents are to do. We are to take every opportunity to teach our children about the God we serve SO THAT they might be enticed to serve Him as well. We are to be living examples and use the examples we encounter as we live. We are to talk to our children about our failures and God's mercy. We must demonstrate mercy toward them when they fail. We are to direct their eyes to the One who really fed them that day. We are to stir in them a love for serving the Lord in the same way my teachers stirred in me a love for learning. Our home should be a safe place, not marked by judgment or hypocrisy. Our home should be a place in which we are always wondering at the goodness and power of God; where we are daily studying to discover more about Him and are filled with a joyful preparedness to discover where He is directing our steps. If Scripture is ours, personal and integrated, it will be to us as natural to share as our family history or the cherished tales of fun-filled family vacations. If our homes are bathed in the promises of God and all who enter are greeted with His image in the faces and lives of its inhabitants, our children will do more than learn. They will want to learn. And they will return to that learning even if they stray. 

Teaching our children --and that goes for our adult children as well --teaching our children is the responsibility of each and every parent, a personal responsibility. It's not on the Sunday school teacher. It's not on the leader at Explorer Girls or Vacation Bible School. We, we parents are to teach them. And it is never "too late." I wish I had the time back. I wish I'd not failed my children so many times. But I have been given today and, as far as I know, tomorrow. The opportunities still exist, and it's on me to seize them, to encourage my children and grandchildren to be lifelong learners in the School of Discipleship for Jesus Christ.