Keep Your Eyes Focused on the Best!

Think for a moment about all of the books that you have consumed in your lifetime up until now, either partially or from cover to cover. Now, in your mind, categorize them in only two columns, edifying or a distraction.

This article is intended to be food for thought for those parents, homeschooling or otherwise, who have found that their child has been exposed to fantasy books and pressure now exists to bring them into the home.

I have found through the years that most of the pressure we encountered w/r to reading material and the various types, came from other Christian children and their parents who did not have any particular standard set in place. They were most often just happy their kids were reading ANYTHING. It didn’t matter the content.

Here are a few key points and questions to ponder while seeking to choose the “best” of literature;

• It’s easier to form a good pattern of behavior than it is to break a bad one.
• Seek to understand what excites your child.
• What are their interests or delights?
• Gently guide them to material that will uphold and under gird them in the faith while feeding their delights.
• Always err on the side of caution when evil is presented as good in fiction books.

Keep this in mind, when we partake of an author’s work we are fellowshipping with them and getting to know their hearts. This material can impact the core of our being in either one of two ways. It will cause us to think upon Christ, or it won’t. It will draw us closer to the Lord or lead us astray.

“And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” -Ephesians 5:11

There have been many times I’ve witnessed conversations as the topic of these fantasy books would be brought up, NOT by myself or my children but by those who consumed them. We’d been asked if we read them, and after hearing our response, which was “NO”, we were then put on the defensive and usually found ourselves BATTLING and DEFENDING our position, WHY WE didn’t want to read them. I found in order to end the discussion, I would reply, “If you want to read the material, or if you want to allow your children to read it, then that is between you and God. Please don’t try to sway us to your way of thinking on the matter.”
You see our answer of “NO” convicted them. It was evident by their (close to hostile), continued questioning of us. Asking them what kind of books THEY read was the furthest thing from our minds!

“If this were your last day on earth or the last book you could read to or with your children, what book would you chose?” (Cindy Rushton)

16 Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. 17 Then the LORD’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the LORD is giving you.18Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 19 Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth. Deuteronomy 11:16-21

These are strong admonitions from the Lord and for our own good.

We have to guard our hearts because there are so many little crevices where wrong thinking and corrupt ideas can creep in and spoil the fruit that we want to see brought forth in our AND our childrens’ lives. It may seem small, maybe an “iffy” book here and there, but that’s all it takes to begin acquiring a taste for that sort of thing.

We only have so much time on this earth to lead and guide our children on the right path. How many good years do you have left to train them to choose the best material for their hearts and minds? After they’ve grown and moved out, you’ll want that peace in your heart knowing they desire to spend their time reading material that will bring them closer to the Lord and further their education, helping to develop their gifts.

There are SO MANY wonderful books to read. Even at my age I have a longing to read them all, but there is only so much time. Reading a book to better understand a particular culture or system of beliefs from a non-fiction perspective is different from reading what is pushed on our children as fantasy. Fantasy fiction books at best, only provide allegories and at worst, introduce children to the works of darkness.

“There shall not be found among you anyone who …practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the LORD, and because of these abominations the LORD your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God. For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not appointed such for you.” Deut. 18:10-14

Romans 12:9, “Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.”

Here’s an excellent statement made by Charlotte Mason that I believe fits very well with the topic of what we and our children should be reading.

Education is a life;
that life is sustained on ideas; ideas are of spiritual origin; and, ’God has made us so’ that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another. The duty of parents is to sustain a child’s inner life with ideas as they sustain his body with food.

• The child is an eclectic; he may choose this or that; therefore, in the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou knowest not which shall prosper, whether this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.

• The child has affinities with evil as well as with good; therefore, hedge him about from any chance lodgment of evil ideas.

• The initial idea begets subsequent ideas; therefore, take care that children get right primary ideas on the great relations and duties of life.

• Every study, every line of thought, has its ‘guiding idea’; therefore, the study of a child makes for living education in proportion as it is quickened by the guiding idea ‘which stands at the head.’
  

Corinthians 10:4-5
“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ….” 2

Our Lord Himself chose the medium of a book to convey the Gospel to us. Feed your mind nutritious and wholesome ideas. Encourage your children to make wise choices as well. Don’t just tell them no, explain why it is so vitally important. In doing so, this is another way to keep our eyes focused on the “best” ……… on “Jesus.”

© 2008 Heart Notes From Home
All Rights Reserved

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Tags: children fantasy books, Homeschooling, reading