Faint not!

Gal 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

If ever there was a bible verse that fit the homeschooling parent like a glove, this would be one of them.

Raising children in the homeschool setting requires a tenacity, probably like no other, in the lives of us homeschooling parents.

Year after year passes and we still find ourselves deep in the trenches, sleeves rolled up and slogging away at the same job, mostly. Sure there are times of change, the children get older, we get older, the curriculum is in greater depth etc, but the foundations remain the same. The foundations are the heart of the child and how we shepherd them. There is one thing that is changing though, and that is the world around us. What society, and within the churches, found unacceptable 13yrs ago has today become acceptable. There is a pressure from the world (and lowering standards in the churches and youth groups) around us to force us to conform to the ways of the world. After all, isn’t it a little “old fashioned” to not accept the more new and the modern way?

The other pressure is from within the home. I find myself forever reminding myself to stand strong on the principles that my hubby and I stood on for my teens when they were young. The question is if I didn’t find a certain amount of video watching acceptable 10yrs ago, why would I find it acceptable now for my younger children? If video games were an activity that we found unacceptable 10yrs ago why would be inviting video games into the home now? What has changed? Certainly not the act of video game playing? Therefore, it stands to reason that if I allow my younger children to play video games in the home, then I’m the one that has changed? There is a temptation within the home to bow the knee to those things we previously would never had bowed to. The truth is, as we get further into the homeschooling years we can get slack in our calling and begin to reason around the principles that we once held dear to our hearts in the beginning.

This can be the demise of us homeschooling parents, the fainting before the end. We need to stand strong, and doggedly refuse to bow the knee to anything that will distract us from the call that God has placed on our lives.

In our home we have adhered to biblical principles for raising our children for 17yrs. We have seen great results with this method and have no plans in changing. We just need to hang in tough and be "immoveable", ALL the way to the end. 1Th 5:21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. We need to hold fast to that which we chose to be good in the beginning, and hold fast to it to the end, tenaciously. THEN we will be winners. We need to doggedly refuse to be molded and shaped by this world.

Obviously we don’t achieve this in our own strength. Does anything good come from us? Absolutely not! Anything that is good comes from above. Jesus in us, as we say “ NO” TO THE CONFORMING TO THIS WORLD, will back us up and strengthen us as we travel the narrow road.

Stay strong, continue in prayer in earnestness, faint not on the way, faint not before the end of the job that is set before us. FAINT NOT! !

Gal 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

Sarah