Isolation or Insulation

How do we protect our children from the evils of the world? Do we shield them from thoughts, morals, and ideas that are contrary to our own? Do we hide them from the dangerous and immoral influences out there?
I think a mistake some parents make is trying to isolate their children from the world. We can’t shield their eyes and ears from every evil. Even if we could, it wouldn’t last. The day would come when they fly from the nest and our protective shield is taken down.
I submit, then, that we should not attempt to isolate them from the world, but insulate them from it instead.
Some parents shield their children to point of letting them watch very little television. The children are not allowed to see movies that are not G-rated. They can’t read most of the books in print because their content is objectionable for some reason. Video games, magazines, newspapers and the Internet are all screened to make sure only positive values are let through.
On the surface, this seems perfectly healthy. But when you think it through you realize you might not be doing the children such a big favor after all. For one thing, you don’t want your children to grow up culturally or socially ignorant. For another, you may be setting them up for a culture shock that may well overwhelm them. One day, they will be exposed to nearly everything you are hiding from them today. How will they handle that if they are not prepared for it?
We all joke that we’d like to hide our kids in a closet until they grow up, but some parents virtually attempt to do this. Every aspect of their children’s home-schooled lives are controlled, filtered, and protected to the point that they may as well live in Antarctica. Then the day comes when the kids walk out the front door and the protective filters are all gone. They see, hear, read, and experience the real world with its ugliness and hatred. Some will find it new and exciting, and rebel against every value that has been placed on them. Others may go back into hiding.
Am I saying that we shouldn’t filter what our children see and experience? Of course not, and reasonable limits should be set on everything. My wife and I don’t prescribe to premium movie channels because there is too much trash there that we don’t want in our home. Some movies, magazines, books, Internet sites, and TV shows have no place in front of your children and you have the right and responsibility to block them. And our filters should be set higher for younger children. I fear, however, that some parents try to go too far.
Instead of isolating them, we should insulate them. We should prepare them for what they will see and experience in the real world. Instead of putting blinders on their eyes, we put love and respect in their hearts. We teach them right from wrong and lovingly explain to them why wrong behaviors and decisions are not in their best interest. We show them the benefits of a life lived against the grain.
Isolation places barriers between them and the world while insulation prepares them for its realities. Isolation teaches them that no one else’s opinion should even be considered. Insulation allows them to hear other ideas with confidence in what they believe. Isolation encourages the children to be dependent on their parents, but isolation encourages self-discipline. Isolation eventually breaks down, but insulation can last for a well-rounded, satisfied lifetime.

Choose Your Battles Wisely

Parents, we don’t want our homes filled with fussing and fighting, but we don’t want the inmates to run the asylum either. There must be a balance. I think the best advice is to choose your battles wisely and stick to your guns on certain issues, while remaining more flexible on others.
Parenting experts say the best parents are moderately strict. Not too strict, or too lenient. Overly strict or controlling parents run the risk of forcing their children to rebel. Think of squeezing a bird in your hand; it will do everything in its power to escape your grasp. Some children feel this way. Other children have security issues because their parents are not setting proper boundaries around them. Boundaries may constrict us, but they also offer us much comfort. Children need that.
It is up to each parent to strike this parenting balance, but I think it’s good to begin with choosing our battles carefully. Certain kinds of rebellions may be considered safe rebellion and are normal and healthy. Adolescents are pulling away from mama’s apron strings and becoming their own individual persons, so some rebelling is necessary. I think hairstyles usually fall into this “safe” category. I would rather my children have wild hair than wild friends. Hair will grow back or change color. Tattoos, on the other hand, are permanent and not necessarily safe. So in our home, we’ll be strict about no tattoos, but perhaps more lenient about hairstyles.
Parents should be rock solid on matters of safety and health, but flexible on most other issues.

Since a curfew concerns safety, it should be a battle we choose to fight. But we can back off some on matters like when to wear ear rings and make-up; when to do chores, clothing styles, friendships, or even hours in front of the television. Stand firm on the importance of study time, school attendance, proper nutrition, and personal hygiene. In our home, church attendance is also not subject to debate.
I know of parents who enforce a strict bedtime, whether it is summer or during the school year. In our home, you’ll find us more lenient on this. In the summer, we let the kids stay up until midnight if they want. For me this is just an issue that is not worth a fight. I know we are going to have plenty of battles as the kids stretch their wings, and I’m saving my strength for the ones that I feel really matter. I don’t want our home to feel like a battlefield, full of yelling and arguing. I also want my kids to feel they are slowly taking control of their own lives. This is important to their esteems and maturity.
Parents must manage every aspect of their infants’ lives. Then they gradually give their children more and more freedoms until releasing them from the nest. I’ve read that as a rule, parents should basically be friends with their children by the time they graduate from high school, offering only helpful advice. This way the young adults are ready to conduct their lives and make good decisions when they go to college or out on their own.
So, choose your battles wisely and don’t back down from what you feel is important or worthy of conflict. But show your kids that you know you are human, compassionate, and not perfect. Lose some battles if that’s what it takes to live in a loving, peaceful, but safe home. And be moderately strict; not too strict or too lenient. Your children will love you for it.

More Problems for 'Ole Evolution

Have you seen the article about the latest challenge to evolution? It's right here. You haven't seen it? I wouldn't have seen it either if I didn't catch it on happy news. My brother told me it was mentioned on Fox News, but I don't get that channel so I never saw it.
When Darwin wrote his theory, we didn't even know about cells. Now we know they are extremely complicated nanofactories that are marvels of engineering. They are irreducibly complex. Darwin thought life was so simple, it bubbled up from the bottom of the ocean. He also thought we would find thousands of transitional fossils to prove his theory. We've found a grand total of ZERO. (Evolutionists have about four fossils that show transitional features, which is not the same.)
I'm sorry, but evolution is a bust.
Am I saying God created the world in six days about six thousand years ago? (Most scientists believe the world is four billion years old.) Not necessarily. Genesis One seems to say it was in six 24-hour days. But we need to look a little closer.

This is a matter that is very important to me. I preach that the Word of God is true and inerrant. I never want to make excuses or explain away difficult passages. I want to read the Bible believing it is forever true. I want to see all of it as being in agreement, both with itself and with what I can observe.
So, it troubles me when I read that God created everything in six days and nature seems to say something very different. In fact, if you believe God created Adam and Eve on the sixth day, you also have to believe Adam named the animals, took care of the garden, then felt lonely for a suitable companion all in one afternoon!
You have to ignore geographical evidence, isotope decay evidence, fossil evidence, and astronomical calculations.
If, however, you read the days of creation as “morning and evening, a day”; “morning and evening, a second day” and keep in mind that Peter said a day is like a thousand years to God, you see the six “days” as specific creation periods. Creation periods that line up with scientific evidence! The Hebrew word for day is yom. It normally means a 24-hour-day period, and in this poetic context seems to be showing how each orderly phase of creation corresponds to days of the week – leading to a day of rest, which is very important and symbolic in God’s economy. (He wants us to rest in him and rely on him for our provision.)
When we view the Bible’s creation account this way, suddenly the textual discrepancies disappear and so do the conflicts with science. It is very comforting to me to know that God’s Word continues to stand the tests of time. It is true and it always will be.
When Moses wrote Genesis, the world was full of religions that claimed all sorts of fanciful creation accounts. God said that He was the creator. The Bible confirms this over and over. I don't know how long he took or how he did it, but I believe God created the universe. I'm watching the fossil record to see what it says, and right now it is saying evolutionists need to keep looking. A good place to start would be Genesis one.

Savannah's Salvation

This column was originally published in the Palestine Herald Press on September 28, 2003. It means a lot to me, so I thought I would share it again:

My daughter has been asking me for several months to baptize her and today I‘m going to do it. I’m going to do it even though I’m convinced she doesn’t fully understand what it means. After all, how can a seven-year-old grasp the idea that the God who created the universe wants to have a friendship with her and so he came to earth in bodily form to pay for her sin so that he can.
I guess I’ve been moving slow on this because I wanted to make sure she really was ready for this commitment. Many parents struggle with this, wondering if their children are old enough for such a decision. So, we proceeded with caution. We didn’t push her to talk about it, but let her bring it up. Meanwhile we continued to take her to church every Sunday and Wednesday, we continued to pray with her at meals and bedtime, and we continued to talk openly about our faith in our home.
And sure enough, she kept bringing it up. I remember being in the pool one hot day this summer and she asked me to baptize her right there in the back yard. (It’s funny, our son asked me the same thing the summer before I baptized him.) I knew she was close, but I just wanted to make sure she understood what she was asking.
Here lately, she brought it up several more times. My wife and I sat and listened to her but she wasn’t saying what we thought we needed to hear. We explained the gospel to her as simply as we could. We told her that we all are sinners and need forgiveness so we can have a relationship with Holy God. That forgiveness saves us from God’s anger toward sin. We explained that Jesus died for us on the cross to pay for our sin and erase that wrath. She shook her head with understanding and said she wanted to ask Jesus to save her. So, we helped her pray that prayer.
Last Sunday, she came down to the front during our church’s invitation and made her decision public. She wasn’t emotional about it and that’s okay. She didn’t have years of stubbornness and sin to feel sorry about, she just knew she had asked Jesus to save her and wanted to tell everyone about it.
By the way, she may not have been emotional, but I was a basket case!
After I baptize her today, I’m going to preach on the story in the Bible where mothers were bringing their children to Jesus. The disciples tried to stop them, but Jesus said to let them come and not to hinder them. The Kingdom of Heaven is entered only when we have a child’s faith, he said. A child’s faith is simple, humble and complete.
The truth? I still don’t understand how the God who created the universe wants a friendship with me and paid a heavy price to get it. I’ll never really understand that. Who am I that God would die for me? But we aren’t saved based on our knowledge, understanding or good deeds, we are saved based on our faith. My daughter has a child’s faith and that’s all she needs.

(For the record, I baptized my son the Sunday after September 11, 2001.)

How Much Jail Time? -- A Response

Anna Quindlen is smart, articulate, and very liberal. She writes on the back page of Newsweek Magazine. This week, she writes what she believes is a slam-dunk against those of us who are pro-life. She asks how much jail time a women should serve if she has an abortion.
In her column, she states that pro-lifers haven’t thought of this. No pro-lifer wants to send a woman to jail for having an abortion. But if abortion is murder, the mother should do time. Since no one wants this, Anna argues, abortion should continue to be legal.
This shows how wrong the whole emphasis is of those who are pro-choice. They are only thinking about the rights and dignity of the woman. Pro-lifers are concerned with preserving the rights of innocent children. The woman may be innocent in some cases, but unborn babies are always innocent.
We do not have the right to take an innocent person’s life under any circumstance, no matter how awful. It doesn’t matter how inconvenient a life is, we do not have the right to end it.
Anna demonstrates how wrong her focus is when she says, “Apparently, no one has told Justice Kennedy about the severe depression and loss of esteem that can follow bearing and raising a baby you can’t afford and didn’t want.” We clearly see that she is only thinking of the convenience of the mother, not the sanctity of life.
In response I would say, “Hundreds of families are desperate for babies; why not allow one of them to adopt the baby instead of murdering it?”
So, do I want to send women to jail if they have an abortion? Murder is murder and should never be acceptable to society. If a mother kills one of her children, she faces punishment. The mother who has an abortion should face the justice system for the same reason. There should be no distinction between a born and unborn child. We should punish anyone who takes a life. Even if the pregnancy was unwanted, or forced upon her. We should not murder innocent people because they are an inconvenience or because their life came about under dubious circumstances.
I don’t want anyone to go to jail, but if I must choose, I choose to protect innocent children. If some women have to do time, then that’s a price I’m willing to pay to preserve the sanctity of life and protect the innocent.
Will some women be harmed because they have unsafe or at-home abortions if Roe V. Wade is overturned? Yes, and I hate that, but it is not a justification to legalize the murder of innocent people.
Sorry, Anna, but your argument is a straw man.