"The last step in reason and confidence is to recognise that there is an infinite realm beyond the finite realm of reason and confidence" (Blaise Pascal).
For most people in the world today the pursuit of happiness consists of gaining a higher knowledge, the acquiring of material security, and freedom of thought and action. For most people in the West I believe this had been more or less achieved by the 1970's. What Westerners - who by and large have rejected Christianity - have not realised is that happiness does not primarily consist in meeting these three goals. All that happens is that more knowledge is sought, more material wealth, and more freedom of thought and action, leading presumably to more and more self-confidence.
However self-confidence does not guarantee happiness and peace of mind. A high standard of education and abundant material things do not give an affirmative outlook toward life. The fundamental truth that as human beings we are as weak as reeds trembling in a breeze and that we are so helpless that we cannot prolong our life even one day by our own will is fundamentally denied. More important than any of these, in my view, is sympathy towards others, diligence in everything and obedience to elders. We have been brainwashed into thinking - and now expecting - that everyone has equal rights and that people should have the right to practucally do anything they want to. Finding faults in and criticising others and refusing to obey a higher authority are now deemed virtuous.
A lack of spiritual education leads to self-centeredness, a refusal to be thankful, an almost total absence of humility, diminished compassion and less and less desire to serve others. Instead we expect a mythical entitity called the 'state' to do these things for us, forgetting that the 'state' is just people who by and large are pursuing the same egocentric agenda but have a lot more power than we do.
People hate to admit that they are blind or wrong. They do not see that divine knowledge is much, much higher than secular knowledge. This is a sin, and it is incredibly difficult to be free from this sin where humanistic values have become the norm. The whole of society has become like the prodigal son, demanding its rights, wanting material advantages handed to it on a plate for the minimum amount of effort. The result is that people have become more and more estranged from each other and desperately lonely. They study the theory of ethics at school and university, as the Pharisees did, when what they need to know is the story of the Good Samaritan.
Real education - and not the cramming of facts, 90% of which we forget after we leave school - is the integration of a person's character with the character which Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) exemplified. Facts are important for sure but character development is without doubt the greater need. Education without a spiritual foundation, and material advantages without concern for the disadvantaged, will not satisfy the needs of any country - which, after all, exists for the people in it.
The home must therefore be the centre of all education. There is no other. We may obtain additional education elsewhere but the education that really matters and which will give us stability and purpose must come from the home. Here we should be learning and living the love of Christ which will then enable us to spend our lives in the wider world leavening it with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This means we must defend and fight for the home whenever it comes under attack from the false philosophies that have seized the throat of society, and to do so will increasingly require great material and temporal sacrifices. We can do it simply because Yah'shua said that He has overcome the world and we are IN Him...or should be.
Let's be about being Christian homebuilders!
