The Knowledge of God - Imparting Faith to our Children

Some Thoughts and Ideas

'By faith Moses' parents hid him for three months…..for they were not afraid of the King's edict.'

Hebrews 11

Whenever I read the story of Moses and his parents' faith I'm inspired by their actions and by the influence they had on their son over a brief time span that enabled him to later live surrounded by idolatry without compromising his faith, but I also wonder why no other mother or father (that we know of) trusted the Lord and took action to deliver their sons from death.

The Israelites were slaves in Egypt and had a slave mentality. Sometimes we can pick up a slave mentality as a consequence of living in a faithless environment but it is impossible to please God without faith and we have to fight against unbelief and the prevailing culture of child raising when it comes to bringing up our own children.

'We have made the Word of Truth conform to our experience and accepted this low plane as the very pasture of the blessed.'

'Faith is not in itself a meritorious act; the merit is in the one toward whom it is directed. Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus.' (A.W. Tozer)

'It is as the mother gets wisdom liberally from above, that she will be enabled for this divine task.' (Charlotte Mason)

I always asked God for wisdom and then doubted that I had any. If you ask for wisdom, you need to believe He will give it and that He will help you to discern what is best and make wise choices regarding your children's influences, activities and direction. (James 1:5, Philippians 1:10)

'...the keys even of this innermost chamber are placed in the hands of parents, and it is a great deal in their power to enthroned the King...' (Charlotte Mason)

There are many keys that can help unlock a child's heart and mind. The Divine Spirit can communicate with them through the avenues of their minds, their wills and their emotion, and for each family it will look different.

Some of the keys for us have been:

• Scripture - Implanting a love of God's Word - our children see that the Word of God is the foundation and the common 'rule of life' in the home that applies to everyone in it.

• Principles - we teach our children principles of behaviour as they mature rather than give them rules. My upbringing started with rules at an early age (and little children need rules) but as I got older the rules didn't get replaced with principles; my parents just let go completely and I was left to form my own principles with the result that I was never really sure how I should act in certain situations.

'I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.' 3 John 1:4

• Humility - being willing to admit that we were wrong about something or asking forgiveness when we've lost it or over-reacted. If our children see the process of sanctification in our lives it encourages them and gives them a sense of security that we are being led by the Spirit of God and not our own whims.

• Teaching our children to serve - this is so important because serving is close to the heart of God - Jesus took the very nature of a servant (Philippians 2:7). In a large family everyone needs to pull their weight or chaos results and we notice very quickly if someone has neglected their responsibilities.

• Grace - we encourage excellence and doing everything to the best of their ability but allow grace to cover their mistakes.

• Faithfulness - little things matter and we've made an effort to teach them that faithfulness in the small things, things hidden from the general view, is important because it really is a heart issue.

Teach me, my God and King,

In all things thee to see,

And what I do in anything

To do it as for thee. 

(George Herbert)

• Honouring God - It's pretty basic: If we honour Him, He will honour us. We've told the children our stories of His faithfulness in our lives, His provision and blessings. Praying about decisions we need to make or for God's guidance shows them that we honour Him and want Him to direct our paths. Good books can inspire our children to honour the Lord as they read about others who honoured Him in their lives: missionaries, godly leaders and heroes of the faith.

• Teaching them to be worshippers - If children know from an early age that He has formed us for himself and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Him, and we model this ourselves, they will understand that nothing else will satisfy them or fill the space that only the living God can fill.

'The very essence of Christianity is personal loyalty, passionate loyalty to our adorable Chief.' (C.M.)

• Prayer - we pray for our children and with our children. We pray for others with them and then believe that God will answer our prayers.We pray over them when they are sick. We pray when they need to make choices.We've prayed regularly for each of them, from an early age, that God would set apart a godly spouse for each of them and bring them together at the right time. We've prayed for each of them that they would come to know Jesus at an early age and walk with Him all the days of their lives.We try to prayerfully choose what they should be involved in so we're not reacting to outside pressure that says if you don't do this, that, or the next thing your children will be deprived. 

'Child raising is not a competitive sport and it's not project management. It's about bringing some balance back into the home because it seems that this virus of hurry has infected our approach to childhood.' (Carl Honore)

• A ministry - our children are our ministry and mission field, our primary responsibility. Our children.....

 'are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.....a result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God...'  2 Corinthians 3:2-3   

Folksong: I Wish I was in Dixie Land (Dixie's Land)

The words and some information on the song can be found at here and also at Poems and Songs of the American Civil War.







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Living Books for Maths

 Living - producing action, animation and vigor; quickening; flowing, opposed to stagnant.

Anno’s Counting Book is a wordless picture book that is full of beautifully drawn images. The book appears very simple, but in fact it contains a sophisticated introduction to ideas about counting, incorporating varied ways of representing number. The idea behind this book is to introduce counting to young children in an appealing and natural way. Each double-spread page uses an array of blocks on the left side, a picture in the middle and the numeral on the right side. As the reader progresses through the numbers, they also move through the months of the year. In February for example, the reader can count 2 buildings, 2 trucks, 2 fir trees, 2 rabbits, etc within the picture itself. The numeral 2 is also given, as well as a pictorial representation of two blocks. These two aspects help introduce children to common methods of representing number in the beginning years of school.

(Thanks to my daughter Zana who came across this book while doing research for a mathematics' scholarship and wrote this for me.)

 

String, Straight Edge, & Shadow: The Story of Geometry by Julia E. Diggins; Illustrated by Corydon Bell

Originally published in 1965 and reprinted in 2003, this book tells the story of Geometry from ancient times up to the time of the writing of Euclid's Elements, using archaeological and historical records and legendary accounts of famous mathematicians of the past.

In ancient times the lines and forms of nature were observed and copied and eventually incorporated into a practical art later known as geometry (from geo, 'earth,' and metria, 'measurement').

Three tools, which are still in use today - the string, straight edge and shadow - were the foundation of this practical art upon which the concepts of theoretical geometry were gradually built.

Well written and full of graphic illustrations, this book gives a thorough, accessible and understandable introduction to geometry, its use and development throughout history and is a wonderful living book for students learning geometry for the first time as well as an interesting book generally.

A Piece of the Mountain: The Story of Blaise Pascal by Joyce MacPherson

Joyce MacPherson has written several biographies of famous men in history who not only earned a reputation in their varied fields of science, art and Mathematics, but were prominent apologists for the Christian faith.

Her writing style is appealing and crisp and her books are written for around a 5th to 6th grade reading level and work very nicely as family read alouds as she includes details of the childhoods and early influences of each of the men.

This story of Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) is a wonderful introduction to an important mathematician who lived through the turbulent times of the 1600's when King Charles I lost his head, Descartes was writing on philosophy and Tasman was exploring downunder. Pascal was educated at home and his father encouraged his early interest in mathematics.

'Every morning Blaise's father spent time with his children's lessons. But what lessons! They were different from the meaningless repetitions of facts founding the schoolbooks. Blaise's father wanted to teach his children to think. His own experience had taught him that schools often attempted to fill a pupil's heads full of facts instead of allowing the pupil to find the truth for himself. Thus, Blaise's father had decided to leave his successful job....and devote himself to science and the instruction of his children.'

Pascal laid the groundwork for Analytic Geometry; he made the first digital calculator, developed a theory of mathematical probability and wrote an enduring defence of the Christian faith which has been read for over three hundred years.

Today his name is used for a programming language, Pascal, and his work on probability was a precursor for development in areas such as genetics, statistics and analysis.