School Years

In every person's life there are those temporal boundaries that define their life changes with the words "before and after." And, as usual, these are the boundaries that will never bring us back.

I think each of us remembers that very day when we went to school. Although it is customary to celebrate this date every year, with the transition to a new grade, but that first day when you go to first grade for the first time is especially significant in the life of every child. They begin a new stage of development and formation.

One way or another, from other children or from parents, in preschool time the little one hears that soon they will go to school. They know older children who have already become schoolchildren, hear stories about school from their parents, and somewhere in their thoughts try to imagine what it is like.

We have advice from the Spirit of Prophecy to keep children with their parents until 8-10 years old, not giving them to any educational institutions, but at the same time engaging in their spiritual development. Global changes occur in the child's consciousness at this time and by 9 years old they physically and morally become ready to receive great knowledge, and can easily master any science. And as the child grows, we are advised to give them home education, where they could go through the school program without leaving their father's house. In our time, technically this has become possible and a very sought-after undertaking.

But unfortunately, in many countries laws have been issued that require parents to send their children who have reached 6-7 years old to state educational institutions where they receive state education according to a certain program. Even with the possibility of teaching their children at home, not all parents are ready to take such a step due to financial or personal considerations. Many simply have no idea how to teach a child at home conditions and it is easier for them to send them to school and engage in their own affairs during their absence.

But secular schools, in addition to knowledge, instill certain atheistic ideology in students, and the godless upbringing of other students has its influence on believing children.

Knowing this situation, many communities organize their own church schools, where brothers and sisters dedicated to God take responsibility for raising the children of their church members according to God's principles of education. Although this costs money and is not a free blessing, it is worth choosing this path.

Thanks to the development of the internet and digital technologies, many schools practice teaching children remotely, where children do not need to go anywhere, but they can receive new knowledge and complete school assignments without leaving home. In connection with this, parents can exercise greater control over the behavior and occupations of their child, but this does not free them from responsibility for the further fate of their children.

The struggle for the spiritual life of one's children should continue as long as they are under the power of parents and live in the same house, and have not yet made their covenant with Jesus, and then this struggle moves to the next level, and parents constantly remember in their prayers their already adult and independent children, until death takes someone from this world.

The Lord has not promised us an idle and carefree life, so it is worth remembering that being a parent is a lifelong calling that is divided into different stages, but connects different generations with strong spiritual and family ties and has a strong influence on every family member, even when death takes someone away forever.

We will not be able, even under the most favorable conditions, to keep our children with us all our lives. This is not part of God's plans. Someday we will have to give them complete freedom and allow them to choose their own life path and acquire their own experience and engage in arranging their lives outside the parental home. We, with our own hands, will need to cut the umbilical cord and give emotional independence even to the closest children, for their own good. The exception can only be sick children who physically cannot live without outside help.

If it happens that your believing children attend a state school, then it is necessary to ask for special protection for their minds and do everything possible to have trusting relationships with children and every day listen to their stories about experienced events and give your instructions on various issues. It is not difficult for children to share everything that happens with those who love them and whom they trust. And may the Lord grant wisdom on how not to cause harm in relationships with peers with this knowledge.

It would be good for parents to know by name all their children's classmates, know every student by sight and study the characteristics of each of them, spreading their unconditional love beyond the boundaries of their homes.

School years are unique in that at this time your children receive basic knowledge in many disciplines that shape their worldview, reveal the essence of things, and make them literate in many spheres of life activity. It is necessary to instill in children that God stands at the head of any science and is the Creator of everything and it is from Him that true knowledge, wisdom, and revelation come. He reveals and shows the great and inaccessible that your children do not know, if they learn to cry out to Him.

The Bible contains an example of the education of Daniel's companions, under the most unfavorable conditions. Their faithfulness to God and His principles made them 10 times wiser than all other peers and still serves as an illustration of how the Lord blesses faithfulness and devotion to Himself.

Parents, do not think that by sending children to Babylonian schools, they will somehow miraculously, by themselves, be protected from corrupting influence and depravity. Without your struggle and participation in their spiritual opposition to the world, they themselves will not constantly row against the current, but at some point, perhaps, decide to fold their oars and begin to fight against you and your principles.

A person's choice is that territory of their personal responsibility for their life that must be respected, but while parents have power and influence over their children, they need to do everything possible to attach them to Jesus and teach them to resolve all their questions precisely with Him. And then constantly ask for blessings on the lives of independent children.

Any science that begins to be studied opens its treasures of knowledge and depths of revelations. It teaches the researcher its secrets and shows harmony in relation to all other sciences. And everywhere, in every science, one can trace one common feature that God is love, from Whom all wisdom begins and to Whom everything wise then returns.

Jesus prayed that we, remaining in the world, would be preserved from evil and the influence of this world. And this is possible if His name is written in the heart and His will stands as the priority of everything. God desires that we learn and master all kinds of sciences, acquiring valuable knowledge, but in such a way that this knowledge does not separate us from Him and does not lead us and our children to the madness and godlessness of this world.

1. Please read Luke 2:52; Isa. 54:13; John 17:15; James 1:5; Prov. 2:6; Dan. 1:3-20; Col. 2:2-3; 1 Pet. 5:8; Jer. 33:3; Rom. 1:20; Eph. 6:4, in light of this chapter.

2. What other verses from the Bible came to your mind?

3. What did you understand from this chapter?

4. Do you remember your first school day?

5. Why is the first day at school an important milestone in every child's life?

6. What advantages does home education give from a spiritual point of view?

7. What risks arise for believing children in secular schools?

8. How do church schools help preserve the spiritual upbringing of children?

9. How can parents support the spiritual development of a child who studies in a state school?

10. What role do parents play in the spiritual upbringing of their children during school years?

11. Why is it important to instill in children that God stands at the head of any science?

12. How can the example of Daniel and his companions inspire believing children and parents?

13. How does unconditional love and support from parents influence a child's school life?

14. Why should school be not only a place of acquiring knowledge, but also of spiritual growth?