Education – Do You Have What it Takes?
If we don’t mold our children’s character and give them the foundation for a healthy spiritual life, haven’t we failed them?
As part of my preparation to teach essay-writing, I have been reading essays – lots of real essays written by real people for real people (as opposed to essays written by students, to be read by test graders, because they have to do well on their SAT’s). In “On the Transmission of Christianity”, by C.S. Lewis (from God in the Dock), the author discusses the failure of Christianity to be transmitted to the younger generation. He proposes that the younger generation had not accepted Christianity because it had never been explained to them. The onus is placed firmly back on the previous generation. He states, “None can give to another what he does not possess himself.”
He goes on to say:
“We are often told that education is a key position. That is very false in one sense and very true in another. If it means that you can do any great thing by interfering with existing schools, altering curricula, and the like, it is very false. As the teachers are, so they will teach. Your ‘reform’ may incommode and overwork them, but it will not radically alter the total effect of their teaching. Planning has no magic whereby it can elicit figs from thistles or choke-pears from vines. The rich, sappy, fruit-laden tree will bear sweetness and strength and spiritual health: the dry, prickly, withered tree will teach hate, jealousy, suspicion, and inferiority complex – whatever you tell it to teach. They will do it unknowingly and all day long. But if we mean that to make adult Christians now and even beyond that circle, to spread the immediately sub-Christian perceptions and virtues, the rich Platonic or Virgilian penumbra of the Faith, and thus to alter the type who will be teachers in the future – if we mean that to do this is to perform the greatest of all services for our descendants, then it is very true.”
While Lewis was speaking about the institution of education, I believe that the principle is true on the personal level. If we are not being “fed” spiritually, we will have nothing to pass on to our children. If we are not allowing God to discipline us and build our character, how can we build the character of our child?
Are you spending time in the Word? Are you spending time in prayer? In fellowship with other believers? In corporate worship and teaching? Do you have people in your life who will hold you accountable to God’s standards? If not, how will you be equipped to pass these things to your children?
A friend recently asked me if I had thought about what kind of grandmother I would like to be (first grandchild coming in March). Of course I have. I want to spend time with this and future grandchildren. To have fun and learn and make memories. Most importantly of all, I want to pass on a legacy of faith, which I must first possess. How about you?
by Marilyn Groop
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