It's All About Perspective...

I read an interesting article in the Raleigh News and Observer the other day about homeschooling.  The piece was in the Editorial Section and was written by someone who seemed to be well known and active in North Carolina government.  It caught my attention first of all, simply because it was about homeschooling and maybe more importantly, because it had a very positive slant of this increasingly popular alternative to the public school system. 

The author made some very good points about those who are good candidates for this approach (both as parents and students) and those who are not.  He described what he felt were the many pros of homeschooling and gave some ways to further investigate this process through other articles and local homeschool cooperatives.

Over the last couple of years I have been continually amazed at how far we have come since the mid-1980’s when Piper and I decided to begin homeschooling our children.  As I have mentioned before, we were looked upon as totally misguided parents who were trying to shelter our kids from the wilds of society.  It was generally thought that our kids (as well as all homeschooled kids) would end up being very naïve to the ways of life, have a very shallow, limited and skewed perspective of the world, be shoddily educated, and socially unable to function as adults.

I think I mentioned how a reporter from the local newspaper interviewed Piper for a running exposé on what she considered to be an underground movement among Christians!  Our homeschool was actually a part of a large contingent of families associated with a local Christian School’s Independent Study Program and were protected under their covering.  But before she agreed to the interview, Piper checked with school officials and talked with a lawyer that represented our group at the Home School Legal Defense offices in Virginia.  The article ended up being fairly positive and featured a front page story complete with pictures of Piper teaching our two older kids while holding on to our then infant second son.

Piper and I always tended to have an opposite view to most of our detractors.  We felt that Christian homeschooling would actually give our kids a wider and better perspective of the world and of life in general.  Piper was always a very hands on instructor and interacted with the kids using a wide variety of curriculums, and among everything else, strove to help them gain a firm grasp of Biblical truths and understand how God’s worldview of life can and should always play a role in their decision making process.  Our kids learned their history from the common perspective taught from the secular history books as well as from the Christian standpoint that actually fills in a lot of the gaps not taught in public schools.

We always thought it interesting that many of the first textbooks used in the education of our country’s children included many Christian references that are absent from the modern textbooks.  I think most people in the USA today would be surprised at what a major role that Christianity played in the establishment, success, stability and growth of our country.

According to Colossians 3:2 in The Message Bible, Paul taught the early church to “Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ (for) that’s where the action is.”  Then he made a startling point by declaring that we should “See things from his perspective.”   

Now Paul was a very educated man, so I am reasonable sure that he was not saying that we needed to neglect or reject our natural training and education but to be aware of and lean toward God’s way of seeing things when they come against contradictions to the truth of His Word.

Like what we hoped to achieve with our homeschooling efforts, I believe that Paul was saying that an ever-increasing, experiential knowledge of God’s ways in life would give Christians a wider, stronger, more versatile and more positive and expectant perspective from which to live their daily lives.

So how well-rounded is your perspective of life?  Are you one that tends to keep their eyes on the things happening right in front of them, or do you possess a wider viewpoint that enables you to also see God’s “now thanks be unto God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place” perspective? (II Corinthians 2:14 KJV)

I’ve learned to always lean first toward His perspective… How about you?  Have a great weekend.  Stay in tune to God’s Word, and keep asking yourself… “What or Who’s PERSPECTIVE am I expecting to have today?”