Salt and Salt Shakers 2

All this was in the context of "How do we test a child's faith?" I'd venture to say that it's not our job. How does God test our faith? Does He? What do we think we know about God testing our faith and what do the scriptures actually say about it? The scriptures do talk about testing. We want to make choices that will stand. But I don't know that it's our job to worry about it or I should rather say that knowing it's coming doesn't guarantee we'll pass. Look at Peter in the garden. We have a responsibility to make godly choices and to keep making Godly choices. But fearfully running away from life thinking that we have to play it safe, that our God is too small, is cowardice - a lack of faith. I'm not talking about testing God. I'm talking about walking where you have to walk to do what you have to do, keeping faith, making "good" choices - even when you have no choices or you don't think you do.

In the blog I read against choosing public school, there are references to Judges and Proverbs. But what of the story of Moses raised in Pharoah's court or Joseph sold and serving in Pharoah's court? What about the story of Daniel in the Babylonian court, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, the servant girl in Naaman's household? A lot of these stories weren't about adults in the world of work. They were about young people. We wouldn't deliberately choose most of those situations for our children. We can say, they didn't have control over their situations. But Life happened. Life still happens and God's stories are still there to teach us something about God. All these people held on to God and God held on to them. He was still walking with them, using them, and He used their situations for good.

The verses in Judges are true. The verses in Proverbs about not walking in the way of sinners or sitting in the seat of scoffers are all true. But so are the scriptures that tell us these other stories. These stories are there to teach us just like the stories in Judges and the words of Proverbs. So how do we learn? What do we learn when the stories conflict? Do we write them all off? Or do we say, they're all true and do the wrestling we have to do to believe God?

If I enter an arena hoping to give something I find myself standing in a different place than if I go expecting to get something for my choices. That applies to children, too. I don't believe children should become the casualties of our choices. But they are in many ways the products of our choices and they survive and they learn and they grow. They also make their own choices. We have a responsibility to protect them but also to show them how to face the challenges life throws at them and those challenges aren't the same for every child or every adult or every family. We don't always have the freedom or the resources to make some of the choices we'd like to make. Or maybe we have faith for one choice but not faith for another choice. Does it make one choice better than another? Does it make one choice more godly? I'd venture to say, "not always". All of our choices affect our children, even before they're born.If we believe that God will walk with us where we're walking and we're still walking in fellowship with other believers, may the Lord walk with us and lead us (and our children) through all the choices we make!

Right or Wrong? Interesting to think that apparently there was no knowledge-of-good-and-evil for man until he ate from the tree. But I'm guessing that when he walked with God in the cool of the day he didn't need to know right from wrong. He was growing a friendship with God.