The Struggle is Real

The Struggle is Real

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8

I’ve heard it said that we are now in a “Post-Christian America.” What does that mean? One definition means that the Christian percentage of the population is declining. While there are arguments for and against this hypothesis, what is real is that we are losing our youth to the culture - primarily because they lack a Biblical worldview. It is no longer enough to send our kids to Sunday School every week and Vacation Bible School over the summer; Christian parents are finding that passing the baton of our Christian faith is like swimming upstream in a raging river.

What exactly is “worldview,” and why is it important to have a “biblical worldview”? How does such a worldview bring the Church together – and keep it together? How does it help you pass on your faith? Simply put, a worldview is the lens through which we view and interpret reality. Everyone has a worldview, even an atheist.  The roaring lion has a face, and it looks like the culture…and it’s coming after our kids. Being a home educator does not provide immunity from the attacks of the lion; I learned this when I found the roaring lion had come to my doorstep.

  

Recently my teenage daughter received a text from a fellow homeschooler.  This young lady is part of the "protective bubble" that my children reside in.  Who would've known?  The young lady explained to my daughter that she is “enter gender-identity label here.” My daughter, clearly confused, asks me what this is. My reply, "I have no idea’; let’s Google it!"  With all the different gender-identifying labels, it’s hard to tell what is what. I’ll spare you the details of this particular self-identification, but suffice it to say my daughter gently and lovingly responds to her friend, that in order to arrive at that label, her friend has to reject God and His Word and was curious if her friend had actually made the decision to renounce her faith. The friend admits that she knows it is a sin, yet her retort is, “We’re all sinners, we’re going to sin anyway and God forgives us.” One thing to note is that the girl makes it a point to mention that she will be deleting her messages so that her parents won’t see them, and implores my child to do the same. Praise God my child speaks to me about these things and we are always watchful with her use of all things social-media.  This is only one story. There are many more raging from this topic as well as her Christian friends defending immorality and well, I want you to finish reading this blog so I won't list all of them. So, what does worldview have to do with this? A lot. 

As Christians, who hold to a Biblical worldview, we recognize God as Creator and we are His image bearers. When we fully grasp that God is the un-created Creator and how we are His image bearers, we become stewards of His creation and we don't even need EPA regulations to do so.  Whew!

As a result of the Fall we are keenly aware (or at least we should be) that sin attacks our humanity, Cornelius Plantiga put it this way, "The spiral is downward, always and endless self-destruction is our bent. Some bleed out through disastrous lifestyle-choices; others suffocate on haughtiness and contempt. But no matter the means, we all die."  

Sin is parasitical to humans; it dehumanizes us.  Think Gollum from 'Lord of the Rings.' To summarize we, in our humanity will never win over sin. Not gonna happen. We need Jesus. I tried battling my demons sans the cross and I crashed and burned. Any of us who thinks differently, we will eventually learn that God is not mocked. Either our pride is too big for our britches and we will continue to hold fast to our sin or like me, we surrender all.

I've told this story before, but it bears repeating because the lesson is that obvious. One fine day after reading the ‘Parable of the Sower’ I thought I would take a “field trip” to our yard and have a real-life teachable moment while we weeded the garden.  You know the one, “the weeds are like sin and you have to pull them by the root.”  As I brought our teachable moment (ahem, science class) to a close, I could see two weeds that had grown into my butterfly bush; my child could not. I take that weed by the root and it slides right out (cue the epic music) - her eyes were big as saucers (cue the lesson). When we don't deal with the weeds (sin patterns) in our life they grow into us and become an integral part of our identity, a mistaken identity.  Even though she didn't see it and thought it was part of the plant, it didn't change the fact that it was a weed (sin).  I think sometimes we want to take weeds in our life and embrace them, not realizing that they are chocking us; they were never meant to be part of our identity. 

Judging from the texts my child receives from some of her friends, I can tell you first-hand our Christian youth has an identity problem; and it's even worse when their identities are not rooted in Christ. We must take a field trip and look for those “unseen weeds” creeping themselves into our children’s identity. 

Mind you, even though my kid thinks I'm ancient, I am old enough to remember going through puberty. It is a time when we struggle for identity. That struggle is real. I get it. I remember. I'm glad it's over.  True story.  Age affords me the benefit of seeing this time period from wisdom's lenses and experience allows me to help my child navigate through all its land mines. But I know that if not for the wisdom that comes from above I would be a captain in a storm with no rudder.  know that our heart needs regular tending to. We are all in need of a life-saving Master Gardener.

We are living in Babylon friends, and according to Scripture we need to be visible in the culture; (see Jeremiah 29:4) a culture whose root issue (its weeds) is unbelief.  Some of us may not be around to witness the “return from exile,” but that does not mean that we surrender the culture war. We cannot reduce the Christian faith to a philosophy, less we be taken captive (Col 2:8). That is not life-giving nor life-saving. We must come together as the Body of Christ and show an unbelieving world the Truth of the Gospel.  So what is a Christian parent to do?

A good place to start is to ensure that the curriculum and resources we use to educate our children are rooted in a Biblical Worldview. From the first books they read, they need to see the richness and fullness of His word.  We must stop teaching our faith in "cartoons".  As we pass on the baton to the next generation let us show them in a robust and concrete manner that theirs is not a “blind faith” and that their faith that can withstand the most severe storm. Stories that provide evidence and information are powerful remedies for the human heart that is struggling in the “battle of ideas,” and we must confidently communicate that we have the Best Story of all.