There is an unseen world that exists around and within us. A world inhabited by God, the author and Father of all creation, His son Jesus the Christ, His Holy Spirit, angels, and demons. There is an order to this unseen world, just like in the seen world we inhabit. There is war in the unseen world, just like in our world. There are times of peace, but where there is free will, there is good and evil, and where there is good and evil, and there will always be war. There is only one created being that can and does exist in both worlds; us. Humans. We are souls who “temporarily have physicality”. Our primary state of existence is not our present physical state, but our future spiritual state. The knowledge of the eternal existence of our souls is a primary instruction for living out our physical existence. If we truly believe that God exists and that we have both physical and spiritual natures, then we will live and love differently than someone who believes in only the physical, being slaves to our appetites and emotions. Differently too from an animal who understands only the physical and reacts in fear and instinct to the world around it.
As Christians we believe in this dual nature of mankind and that God, through His Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit seeks out His elect and speaks to us through the scriptures, through His creation, through our hearts and through other people. God speaks to us in joy and pain, life and death, work and play. The gentle wind of His Spirit. The peace which surpasses all understanding. A kind word spoken or written at just the right time. He speaks to us in silence. The silence that requires of us faith, "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."The silence that calms our hearts and minds to sense His presence deep within our own souls.
Now our biggest challenge as parents is not teaching about Jesus, but teaching of this "unseen world" inhabited by a triune God: The creator, the savior and the counselor. But also inhabited by messengers and warriors, princes and dragons all locked in battle for the elusive, eternal souls of man. If a child can believe and understand that this seeming fantasy, this mythology, is true, real and urgent, then all of a sudden the entire landscape of their lives will be transformed and the quest for hearing God's voice changes from an "ought" and "should" to a "need" and "want". Knowing the savior becomes a soul-searching need to find our king rather than a story told for fifteen minutes after crafts on Sunday before brunch. The world fits with this story.
The world can be understood through this story. This story is bigger than us. Bigger than our comprehension. Bigger than science. Bigger than the grandest ideas of history. Unless our kids understand the whole story; the hard parts and easy parts, the logic and paradox, the difficulties of faith and free-will, good and evil, pain and fear they will never be fully committed. They need to know where and how they fit into this TRUE story, and what they will be up against, who they are following and why. They need to be taught how to follow Jesus, how to pursue Him, how to be with him and how hear the Father's voice like He did. Only then will they be prepared to do the will of The Father which is the purpose of all of creation. Only then will they truly, truly believe.
Notes and Ideas:
We have grown so accustom to seeing and hearing evil that we dismiss it as a normal part of life.
This paradox the physical world and its issues are just hard tangible version of what is going in the spiritual realm. However, we must fight the spiritual war much different than how we fight in the physical world. Jesus spent much of his ministry teaching us how he fought the physical world with spiritual weapons of love, forgiveness, truth, repentance, healing, casting out demons, and most importantly asking the Father for instructions our supreme commander.
Hearing God’s voice and will for us is an absolute if we are to be true followers of Christ. My life is now: I HAVE to talk to God. I HAVE to know what my next orders are! I HAVE to be trained. I HAVE to be reprimanded by the LORD. I HAVE to be healed of my battle wounds. I HAVE to follow Jesus for God sent his One and Only SON to teach us reality of being warriors for God and for the SAKE of building/defending his Kingdom.
Thank you to my great friend PH for being a such a source of the light for me helping me write this so clearly.
