Few young people appreciate what it means to have a full service gas station. Long gone are the days when the filling station attendant(s) would come to your car window, and you would say, “$5 of regular or unleaded.” (I don’t even know if their reflexes are fast enough to stop at $5 today!) They would then raise your hood and check your oil level as well as clean off your windshield. Rain or snow, it didn’t matter; they were there. Even as I type these words, this scenario seems like a world of ages past.
Just as our cars need to fuel to finish their journey from point A to point B, so we parents also need to get filled up throughout the year to accomplish God’s purposes in our homes, churches, and communities. It is such a temptation to think we have enough gas in our emotional and spiritual tanks to make it farther than we actually can. The unexpected results of running low include frustration, impatience with our children, self-condemnation, burn-out, and an all-around miserable experience.
Whether it is in life or in homeschooling, we have to be intentional about keeping our tanks as full as possible. Sure, there are some seasons that are longer than others and filling stations seem few and far between, but it is imperative that we make time to pull off the interstate of life in order to stretch our legs and refuel. How can we do that?
First, we need to be involved in a local church. Every week we need to be in fellowship with like-minded believers and hear the Word of God preached. Our children need to see other families doing the very same things we are doing. Second, we need to cleanse our family with the washing of the water of the Word. (Eph. 5:26) We do not need to be seasoned theologians to read the Bible to our families, but all of us need daily engagement with God. I tell my children that just like we need a physical bath to wash the dirt and grime off of our bodies, we need to have our spiritual man purified as well.
Third, we have to realize that we can’t do it all, and we can’t have it all. Far too many homeschoolers end up car schooling because they want their children to have every opportunity possible. It is far better to do a few things well than many things halfway. Saying “No” is really difficult for those who are go-getters. Since homeschooling is a marathon and not a sprint, we need to find a good speed, so we can go the long haul.
Of course, all of this is easy to say but it can be very hard to do. With our independent, American mindset, we think we can do anything we set our mind to. All we have to do is work long enough and hard enough, and it will automatically happen. While a good work ethic is indispensable to a good homeschooling experience, we need to make sure we are working hard at the right things.
This month’s prayer and fasting is important because we are focusing on parents’ ability to go the distance and to do so in a way that points our children to Christ. It is one thing to get to our destination, but it is quite another to get there emotionally intact.
The National Homeschool Day of Prayer is Friday, November 6th. I encourage you to pray for the following items on that day as well as the Facebook hourly prayer prompts. To know what these prayer prompts are, simply like the ICHE Facebook page.
- Pray that God will fill up our tanks by His Holy Spirit.
- And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. –Acts 13:52
- And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, –Col. 1:9
- Pray that we will realize when our spiritual and emotional tanks are getting low.
- Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. –Matt. 11:28
- For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. –2 Cor. 12:10
- Pray that each family finds the pace of life that works best for them.
- Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, –Phil. 2:12
- Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, –Heb. 12:1
- Pray that we will have discernment in our activities and priorities, choosing between good and best in our activities.
- Out of all the gifts to you, you shall present every contribution due to the Lord; from each its best part is to be dedicated.’ –Numbers 18:29
- but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. –Luke 10:42
- Pray that we parents will understand that even our ability to steward the children whom God gives us comes from Him.
- But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.–1 Cor. 15:10
- I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. –John 15:5
- assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for you, –Eph. 3:2
- Pray that God will fill us with the physical energy to stay engaged with our children as they age.
- Turn to me and be gracious to me; give your strength to your servant and save the son of your maidservant. –Psalms 86:16
- He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. –Is. 40:29
- Pray that God will give us the creative energies we need to meet the varying needs of life and homeschooling.
- For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. –Col. 1:16
- Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.” –Is. 42:9
- Pray that we parents will fully appreciate—and not be frustrated or wearied by—our children’s personalities, those that are different than ours and exactly like ours.
- Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? –Matt. 7:3
- Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. –Eph. 6:4
- Pray that the older we get the more passionate and energetic we will become about the things of the Lord.
- Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated. –Deut. 34:7
- I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. –Joshua 14:11
- Pray that we will fight for a godly culture in which to raise our families and be determined to pass on a godly legacy.
- And I looked and arose and said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”–Neh. 4:14
- that the next generation might know them the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; –Ps. 78:6,7
- Pray that all homeschoolers will find a local church that preaches the true gospel.
- Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. –Heb. 10:25
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