Do you think of your children as being your children, or as a product created for you to feed and clothe? It may seem like there is an obvious answer to that question, but I’ve come to see and believe that, while most parents would answer with a solid “yes,my child is mine,” there may be actions, or omissions that contradict the statement.
Recently I’ve had multiple acquaintances mention to me that they were praying for Canada. It kind of took me aback at first. Why pray for Canada? Doesn’t your own country have its own problems? A few of these people were Americans, but others were in different continents. They were praying for our country in the same way that we have often been led to pray for other countries under dictatorships. Where they live, what they see of our nation’s leadership, the rights that have been taken from us, and the liberties that “leaders” take with our children, has actually led them to pray for our freedom! They look at us the same way that I have been taught to look at the subjected people in communist China. And so these conversations have led me to ask myself many questions about the way we live, and how we let others influence our thoughts, and the minds of our children.
In every horrible political take-over, pretty much ever, a totalitarian government works to subvert the authority of parents, and to infiltrate the minds of children with propaganda and a specific, directed idealism. Children are taught to doubt the ideas of their parents, to question and disregard certain authority figures, while obeying others, to repeat mantras, to scorn the faith of their family, and to suddenly and emphatically hold to movements and ideologies that would otherwise have been unthinkable. Children are told that their parents are outdated or worse if they do not follow the dictated tides of the time, no matter how illogical and dangerous those tides are. The children detach from their parents, swear allegiance and are “carried away by all kinds of strange teachings”. (Heb. 13:9)
It makes many people uncomfortable to talk about this. They feel like it’s an extremist’s kind of conversation. To talk about a child belonging to their parents is somehow backwards. To talk about a child owing something to the government is shockingly less problematic. We have been subtly and intentionally led to feel this discomfort. Doesn’t it somehow feel wrong to question a doctor, a teacher, a political leader when those people make choices for our children without talking to us first? I’ve felt it. We doubt our role, we doubt our knowledge, and frighteningly, we doubt our rights. (That last doubt is the huge red flag that tells you the state of our country.)
In Canada, doctors can do extreme and serious procedures on your child without you ever being contacted. And we just sit here and accept it. A teacher can come into the classroom and discuss perverted sexual acts, and lead a child into conversations about sexual experiences and feelings without notifying parents that he intends to do this. Or they can intentionally lead a child into a particular political or spiritual mindset without a parent’s knowledge. They are defended by the government. And we sit here and accept it. That is insanity.
I personally know of a teacher who works privately with students and has encouraged them to make decisions against their parents’ will, and without informing them. A few of these children were wise enough to tell their parents, and while they were upset, the parents never acted upon it, never asserted their authority, or removed the child from that teacher’s reach. Why not?
The fact that so many parents do not intervene in this too common scenario is proof that many families think of their children as not completely theirs but, at least partially, as wards of the state, something they are expected to feed and clothe and then pass on to the experts. Parents are expected to back off and allow the professionals to raise the child. The professionals (who are in fact paid employees of the parents) assert themselves as acting in the child’s best interest when they lead the child in ways diametrically opposed to the ways of their parents.
The truth is that children are not a government commodity, but the fruit of two people’s love. The child is his parents’ because the child was given to them by God. The child is His work of art, and He has given them to parents to teach, lead, inspire and help grow in greatness. While a parent may choose to involve third parties in this calling, it should always and only be at the parent’s intention and discretion.
There is a great spiritual battle against families. Our children are being taught to doubt the faith and traditions of their families nearly every moment of the day. We are called upon by God to reclaim the hearts and minds of our children, but this comes along with the charge of complete self-sacrifice, of vigilance, and of counter-culture direction. Pray for your children everyday. And then start teaching them to challenge the ways of the world.
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