See… Smiles.

We do not expect our children to handle the same degree of responsibilities or burdens that Seth or I might handle. I would not expect my daughter to sit and counsel with some of the heavily broken women that I counsel with. She is not ready to hear their stories nor counsel with them. However, I do expect that she will do *something* for the Kingdom. And honestly, I don’t go searching for something for my children to do. I train them up, teaching them to do their studies, to read their Bible, love Jesus, and serve Him with all their hearts. As things come up in life, I teach them how to understand them in light of Scripture. Then God gives them jobs to do as He sees fit, simply living as a part of our family.

While they are our children and in our care, and it is right to protect them, teach them and provide for them, they don’t really belong to us. They belong to God. We need to raise them up to be ready to do what God has in store for them. I do not want to so totally shelter and hide my children that in the end I say to God, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed.’

Of course, I am not arguing sending my kids places they are not ready to go, like say the public schools. But of course, you know that is a ridiculous argument to make against us, being that we do not send them there.

What I *meant* to say was:

when you said, “But then it got long and rambly, so I promoted it to full-blown blog post. Hooray!)”

THAT was funny.

btw–that was really funny.

I looked at my Hebrew tools and the word listed for Goliath, translated “champion” is actually two Hebrew words, iysh (man) and benayim (space between two armies). The word in Psalm 127:4 translated “children” is be_n (from banah, means literally a son, in the widest sense).

Is there a source I can check that will contradict my Hebrew tools or are you misremembering something possibly?

Seth:

I appreciate the clarification here (not that I didn’t know you thought this when I commented on the other post, mind you). Our children are in the war with us, and on their own as they battle sin in their own hearts and around them. It still is our task as fathers to shelter them from some things until they are ready for them.

Corrie Ten Boom tells a story of when she was very small and on the way home from worship she asked her father a question about something she heard in the sermon, “Daddy, what’s a sex sin?”

Her father, rather than answering the question asked her another, “Corrie, when we go on the train with our suitcases do I ask you to carry the heavy bag?”

“No, papa, you always carry the heavy bag. I get the smaller bag.”

Some bags are too heavy for our children. It may be in some circumstances (like those of your wife) that God in His ultimate wisdom thrusts situations on us that we may think are too heavy for us for His purposes. That, however, doesn’t mean that we thrust all things on our children without considering whether it is time for that. And in some of our families the “when” of revealing certain things will be different from others. Some of that will be dictated by individual circumstances (”daddy, what was that loud bang outside last night?) and some will be dicated by the decisions of the fathers based on things in which we differ. And while I may disagree with you or you with me or both of us with someeone else as to the “when” for children on a particular topic, that decision needs to remain, with our respect, to the individual father. Or to praphrase something you’ve said before elsewhere in other contexts, each father has his own ball to drop.

On a completely different note if you’ll look below the “who’s your audience post” got mangled on input from blogger or by wordpress some other way.

The word for children is Psalm 127 is also used to describe Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. The Brill Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon translates the word a champion not a child.

I am not suggesting you do not have to train up your children for the battles you face in your neighborhood. My concern was that it seemed you were ready to send them with standard in hand to the front line. It seems I may have been incorrect with that assessment. As has already been shared, this is an argument many use to support public schools.

I am glad to see you view your ministry to those near you as a family mission. We do as well. It has been our heart for years. But my goal is to teach them warfare at my side. It seems you share this goal.

Welcome home and may the Lord bless your ministry.