When I started doing some serious research into homeschooling, many people suggested having a "mission statement". This statement would help be a reminder to you on the busy and difficult days why you are homeschooling. A couple of weeks ago in our evening devotions I struck upon the perfect verse to guide us through the year.
"Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory!"
I have even changed our tag-line for my blog to "Growing together in God's grace."
Grace is something that is so essential to our Christian lives. I also happen to believe that the lack of grace shown within the church is a large part of the reason that many of the "church kids" I grew up with no longer attend church.
I make a lot of mistakes. And I want God to show me grace!! So who am I to with hold this precious gift from one of my children just because I happen to be in a bad mood and what they did really irritated me. Yet often in that situation, I end up yelling at one of the kids. But I try to go back and apologize, ask them to show me grace, and in turn show them grace.
And then there is Hope. Hope that this grace can seep into their lives, to make them better people, to extend grace beyond our family and into the world.
A great mission statement. How do you define grace?
ReplyDeleteThe definition I've most often heard is "unmerited favor." But how do you grow in God's unmerited favor? Doesn't make any sense.
So the *best* definition I've heard for grace is "God's action in our lives to accomplish what we can't accomplish on our own." With that understanding of grace, we can realize that we humans would still need God's grace even if we had never sinned. And of course, it covers unmerited favor and forgiveness of sins and all that...but I think this definition makes much more sense in light of how the word is used throughout Scripture and in light of our experiences in life.
Can't wait to see you all soon!
Paul, that is an awesome definition of grace! I do often think of grace as "unmerited favor" -- and at this point it's probably the simplest way to explain it to young children. But I think they could also understand that we can't do things on our own, but God can -- and when He does those things we are experiencing His grace. So cool!!
DeleteLooking forward to catching up with you!!
I could never homeschool..not for me and also Xavier he needs to be with other kids..but I think it is awesome that you are home schooling your kids!
ReplyDelete