Get Back to the Basics

Don’t feel sorry for or fear for your kids because the world they are going to grow up in is not what it used to be. God created them and called them for the exact moment in time that they’re in. …Don’t let your fear steal the greatness God placed on them. I know it’s hard to imagine them as anything besides our sweet little babies, and we just want to protect them from anything that could ever be hard on them, but they were born for such a time as this.

This is an excerpt from a Facebook post made on January 6 by Alex Cravens, a young father of two. The post went viral, garnering untold numbers of views and shares and over 22,000 comments in less than two days. And Mr. Cravens is right, of course. But, if you’re like me, you probably do fear even though you know you shouldn’t. And you likely wish there were something you could do to make the last year and all its future ramifications disappear.

Of course, none of us exactly knows what the coming days and months will bring. Our anxiety might actually be for naught. Perhaps both COVID and the virus of hyper-partisanship will soon be constrained, enabling us to resume our normal (not “new normal”) lives post haste. But, honestly, in the case of the latter at least, that would take a miracle.

And God can work miracles where we least expect them! However, if His will involves something different, we must choose to walk in faith – remembering that He’s not surprised by any of what’s happened and that He will sustain us through whatever is to come. We must model that faith for our kids so they can do the same.

There is within the homeschooling movement to which I’ve belonged for almost 20 years a call that I believe applies right now to all parents: Get back to the basics.

Those leading this charge have challenged homeschoolers to set their priorities aright, putting the basic needs of faith and family first. It’s not that other endeavors are unimportant. But getting back to basics means focusing first on our relationships with the Lord and with those in our own homes – putting time with the Lord before anything else and equipping ourselves and our children with deep knowledge of the Word – and then trusting that matters of secondary importance will fall into place as He’s ordained.

Astute mothers and fathers at other times of national crisis – the Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, the two world wars, to name just the most obvious – focused on these basics, and God saw them through. We can do the same thing now, for such a time as this.

CK