The Fence Dweller

I've been reading in Steve & Teri Maxwell's book, Keeping Our Children's Hearts. It's been a slow process (thank you, Jill for being patient with me!) because there is just so much there to digest and I have very few hours in the day when digesting is an available activity.

Something that stuck out to me in a recent chapter was the concept of going through your home with a "pure eye".

It is so very easy to become oblivious to the world creeping into our homes. Either everyone else is doing it or we're tired or we just missed that one. Sometimes something we thought could be beneficial ends up being not that great and we hate to have to rethink that decision, let alone face the possibilty of needing to get rid of it altogether.

Apathy is our enemy.

When we either just don't care or choose to avoid the really tough questions, we do ourselves no favors. The Bible is rich with examples of apathetic people and the terrible consequences that follow. It is also rich with a call to "get off the fence".

I'm afraid lately I've been a fence dweller.

I inched closer and closer to that fence and then I just hopped right on it and set up camp.

Fence livin' isn't uncomfortable livin' like you might think. At least not at first. If you find yourself a nice, wide patch of fence-top, you can sit there for quite some time before it gets uncomfortable.

It's kind of like living in the middle of the road.

Depending on where you live (like my hometown), you can stand in the middle of the road for a long time before any cars come by; but if you stand there long enough, you will get run over.

The apathy that got you there, will eventually be the truck that plows you over or the wind that blows you off the fence.

Jesus doesn't sit the fence. Jesus doesn't stand in the middle of the road so he's halfway between earthly things and heavenly things. He stands on one side and beckons you over. Halfway there isn't there.

Lately, our family was engaged in a fantastic conversation about being IN the world and not OF the world and what might that look like. We ARE going to look different. We ARE going to act different. And we should EXPECT to be persecuted for it.

Are all Christians going to look the same? Are all Christians going to act the same?

To an extent, yes.

There is a standard. There are rules. What we do to express our unique identity within those rules is our perogative, but we cannot ignore the line.

When we sit the fence, we live on the line.

And someday our apathy will knock us over the line...onto the wrong side.

That's the way of apathy. We don't know it's apathy until it's already happened.

One thing about sitting on the fence is the fact that you don't go anywhere. You just sit there. You're not very teachable up there because someone might tell you something that would require you to get down. Most people sitting on the fence wear earplugs. It's just easier that way.

There have been a few wake up calls this week that made me realize I needed to pull the earplugs out. I could no longer sit there and do nothing because that was the easier thing to do or because I didn't want to deal with it. I realized just how stagnant I had become.

It's been refreshing to go back through my home with a "pure eye". I needed the reminder. I needed the spurring conversations I've had with friends lately. I needed the one-on-one deep discussions my husband and I enjoyed this past week.

I needed to get off the fence.

Worldview Resource ~ Truth Chronicles from Adventures in Odyssey

Worldview is everything.

You either have a Biblical one or you don't. I want my children to have a Biblical worldview, but for someone who has had to claw her way out of a deeply-engrained secular worldview, I'm always on the lookout for good worldview resources to help me teach my children how being a Christian affects every aspect of their lives.

Our family takes a lot of road trips and for years now has thoroughly enjoyed the Jonathan Park CDs. In a recent discussion with some other homeschool moms, I learned of a radio drama from Adventures in Odyssey entitled The Truth Chronicles that parallels The Truth Project, an adult Bible Study on gaining a Biblical perspective.

I decided to purchase a copy and let me just say, "WOW!" Good stuff! (You can actually listen to the first episode by clicking HERE and then clicking on the link on that page that invites you to listen to the episode "Here Am I"!)

These cd's are full of meaty information, but it is presented in a way that even very young children can grasp the concepts. There are a few inferences I've had to explain (I won't give these away because they really are quite clever and worth chewing on a bit), but for the most part, my 11 year old and 8 year old have easily understood the importance of having a Biblical worldview as opposed to a secular/humanist worldview. We've also enjoyed many lively discussions pertaining to the subjects presented in this audio series.

The Truth Chronicles has my hearty approval!

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