Thinking Out Loud Tonight...Children, the Bible, and the Vipers that Await Them

During recent days, I took some time (too much really) to look around at the big, bad, and sometimes ugly world and see how things were ticking. Please don't get me wrong, I'm an optimistic person by nature. I can usually find something promising in a rock! But- looking at what others are saying here and there on the big WWW, I've nearly made myself vomit with nausea.

There are atheists and venomous vipers out there lurking and waiting for your children and mine, to come out of our warm, safe, Christian homes- and right into their traps.

They've made it their life's goal to educate themselves on logic, fallacies, ad hominem, and lunacy and rebellion against the Word of God....like NOTHING I've ever seen here in Smallville.

They know the Scriptures probably better than you and I, and they are so much like their father- the father of lies?- that you almost can't tell them apart. It's only a little flesh on their bones that gives them away... They take the blessed Word of God and they do just as our arch-nemesis did in the garden. "Thou shalt not surely die!" And they go on to say that "God lied" because Adam and Eve did not die right then and there. Do your children have an answer for that? The snakes have one that they are lying in wait to give to your children and mine.

Looking further my eyes and heart burned with indignation for our beloved God. And fear nearly rattled my brain at the thought of what this great God will one day do to those who refuse to turn from their sins. These vultures are lurking and they can't wait to pounce on our children and back them in a corner with; "If your God is so loving, why are kids starving to death this very night? And if your God is so loving, why did He order so many deaths in the Old Testament? And if your God is so much better than their god, then why did He say people who did certain sins in the Old Testament should die...after all, He is the same God as in the New Testament, isn't He? So what makes Him any better than their god?"

Oh but the madness doesn't stop there my friends in the faith! I had one tell me just today that the only things that mattered in the whole Bible were just the exact words that Jesus Himself spoke in the New Testament.... while telling me that I needed to go read my Bible. In my exasperation, I tried to quote some verses back to this person, but the Words of that precious Book were unacceptable on that forum. Seems that "Scriptures" are equated with "curse words" in many places today. But again I ask, do your kids have an answer for that?

I think of these verses and I'm convicted:
Deu 6:7-8 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

And I think of this:
1 Pet 3:15  But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh..


And this one;
Col 2:8  Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

I'm forced to confess my inadequacies to God and beg for His guidance, knowledge, and help.
He promises to help you and me!

James 1:5-6  If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering...


Well- what about faith and asking in faith not wavering?
Rom 10:17  So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

His Word is our supply of faith and the more we go to It, the more faith we can gain. The more faith we can gain, the more we can ask for that "wisdom" in prayer and be "given liberally"- it is a wonderful cycle that He has created!

Oh that God would help us, because the vain philosophers are there, crouching and waiting.

I shared this because it was on my heart tonight (after reading so much filth) but it is reading these things that has caused me to add a couple of things to our reading list this year. (One
and Two and I would love to get the series
for younger kids.)

Let us pray for one another!
And please do tell me if you have other suggestions for preparing children, spiritually, for the wild world!