Our First Day of School

Today's the day! Once again I have the joy of teaching and learning with my little boys...boys who are not so little anymore...boys who are quickly becoming amazing young men. As I've been preparing for another new year of homeschooling, God has given me a renewed vision of the task before me. It's one thing to teach our boys to read, to multiply, to recognize parts of speech, to identify constellations, and to have a greater understanding of our nation's history. Though daunting at times, I've done (or am doing) those things, and the boys are making tremendous strides in all these areas.

But of far greater importance, I've been reflecting on the monumental task we've been given in discipling the hearts of our boys. God has given us the task of shaping our boys hearts...giving them a heartbeat for Him...modeling what it means to follow after Him passionately.

This truth has caused me to once again evaluate my walk with Christ. In reading Deuteronomy 6, I'm reminded that my walk with Christ is paramount to training our young boys' hearts.

"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (vs. 4-9).

Before God ever instructs me to teach our boys anything, He addresses me. He deals with the issues of my heart. He wants all of me, not the partial, half-hearted sacrifices of time I'm so often tempted to give Him. He wants to radically change my life from within...to make me wholly His alone. And I recognize anew that it's only when I'm filled with Him that I have anything to pour into our boys. Oh, that God would take this too-often stubborn, wayward heart of mine and make it completely His. This is my prayer.