The Good Book Company (Australia) will be closed from Saturday 21st December until Thursday 2nd January. Any orders placed during this time will be held and dispatched on Thursday 2nd January 2025. Emails will still be checked. Apologies for any inconvenience this causes.
I don't read The Telegraph often but one of the lead stories today caught my eye: Your child is not a genius. Get over it.
Its basic thesis is this: Being ahead or behind in reading or maths as a child has little bearing on achievement as an adult. So take off the pressure, enjoy your kids and let them grow at their own unique pace. Really, it's not a competition. And, quite frankly, who wants to be a genius anyway?
Intriguing words... You see, I've noticed a trend among many of my friends: Extra tuition, practice papers every week, an abundance of extra curricula activities that will boost their child's chances of getting into a better school or more prestigious university. The diaries of children are a hive of activity and, at times, a melting pot of pressure.
In some cultures, parents go to extreme lengths, amassing huge debt to pay for the best educational supplements that money can buy and in the process putting a huge strain on the whole family.
Church families are not immune to this mindset. As I look around the various congregations with which I have some contact, there's been an increasing trend for parents to keep their kids home on Sundays at key times of year to encourage them to prep for the all important interview or exam. It's a sacrifice, they acknowledge, and far from ideal, but necessary.
The question is: necessary for what?
Getting good grades is a great thing to which to aspire. There is nothing wrong in going to a top university. Using God-given gifts to excel in law, accountancy, medicine or theoretical physics is a fine career path. But necessary? Far from it ...
I was reflecting on the Beatitudes over the weekend (Matthew 5:1-12). The path to a blessed life in Christ is not one spent in pursuit of achievement, qualifications, prestige or a high enough income to buy that oh so pleasing home. It is a life spent in pursuit of righteousness, a life showing the humility and other-centredness of Jesus, a life of sacrifice. It's a life, as Jesus said later in that same sermon on the mount, spent seeking the Kingdom of God first (Matthew 6:33) with everything else following naturally on behind.
What would such an attitude look like? Maybe a recent comment I heard could help ... "I always encourage my child to work hard and do their homework well but the bottom line is I would rather see him as a street-sweeper who loves Jesus with all his heart than a doctor who sees church as something to wander along to when convenient. What he needs to know most is just how much he is loved by God and how much God wants every part of his heart to be orientated to Jesus' Lordship. No school, no exam, no salary is more important than that and I refuse to do anything that gives the impression it is".
Counter-cultural? Absolutely! And wonderfully, liberatingly Christ-like too.
The idol of education lurks in many hearts. We all too easily believe the lie that security can be found in a good job; happiness requires a high standard of living and certificates are the path to a fulfilled life. Of course, the only sensible thing to do with an idol is to smash it into oblivion and instead focus on the truth: there is no life more blessed than a life where Jesus is put first. After all:
What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? (Matthew 16:26)
