I admire wilderness survivalists, though I have no desire to be one. In an interview, one recounted his time in a Siberian village preparing for a lone trek into the wilderness. He mentioned the villagers by name as he spoke of their many acts of kindness towards him. He really was welcomed as family. At the end of the interview, he was asked if he had kept in touch with the villagers. His tone changed to one of sadness. He began to lament the effects of isolation, vodka, and unemployment upon his friends. A bar fight had claimed the life of one, and another was found dead in the snow. He said that the wife of the murdered man seemed to treat her widowhood as a normal part of life.
It is hard for some of us to fathom that drunkenness, fighting and murder can be considered normal aspects of daily existence. These are the behaviours portrayed by criminals in TV shows, not the everyday stuff of village life.
Christian children are quickly lifted out and away from such circumstances. Their parents are eager to surround them with the safety and morality of church life. How long these improvements last into the future is left in the hands of the offspring. Bible history shows is that good can be followed by more good—but not always.
Parents cannot dictate the spiritual directions of their children. However, they do have the ability to create an environment that reflects the Christ they follow. This can even be done when the home or society in which they abide gives in to the excesses of unbelief.
Peter speaks to a home where the believing wife’s most effective tool of persuasion is the “purity and reverence of her life” (1Pet.3:2). And, in broader terms, Jesus speaks to the power of our everyday Christian deeds that reveal the light of the Glory of the Heavenly Father to all around us (Mt.5:16).
It only needs one to begin the change.
John Staiger
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