4 Ways to Prepare Your Children for the “New Normal” World
What strange times we live in! I’m sure every one of us could not have imagined the world the way it is now even just a couple of months before Covid-19 hit. While I keep one ear to the ground and one eye on what the future may hold, I have often found myself praying for our five beautiful children. Their future may be fraught with dangers, pandemics, food shortages, times of quarantine, and hardships greater than our generation has never known.
You may find these 4 Ways to Prepare Your Children for the “New Normal” World helpful:
Pray for the Salvation of Your Children
An older and wiser friend once told me that as parents, we can’t know whether our children are truly saved or not, until after they’ve left home. That is when we can observe their choices and know whether or not they are truly basing their lives on God’s Word, or following their own fleshly desires.
I say this not to discourage you, but to sound an alarm that even the children in your household that you may be convinced are saved, may not yet be.
Honestly, the best way that you can prepare your children for their future in this world which we are assured in God’s Word will only get darker, is to pray for their salvation. They will need the Lord, they will need His peace, and they will need to stand strong with courage that only He can provide. They need Him both in this life and eternally.
Pray
Ensure that Your Children are Familiar with Eschatology
Eschatology is the study of End Times. God has graciously given us a volume of 66 books within our Bibles that spans His words about the past, present, and future. Knowing the origins of our universe, the history of the world, and God’s plan of salvation are crucial, but our King did not stop there. He graciously and plainly laid out what mankind can expect and revealed who wins at the end!
It is imperative that your children know what to expect about what is to come. The Bible is clear;
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.
2 Timothy 3:1
Your children need to be familiar with events leading up to the “Last Days” firstly, so that they can identify where they find themselves in the timeline of things to come.
Secondly, so that they can identify signs of the times in God’s Word which will strengthen their faith in His Truth.
Thirdly, so that they can identify the hope that they have in Him – the One who is sovereign over all things and who will be their help in times of trouble.
And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Matthew 28:20b
Teach Your Children Critical Thinking
Not everything your children will hear through the media will be true (understatement!). One of the best ways that you can prepare them for a future in this “new” world they’re facing is to teach them to question what they hear. It’s never been easier to research facts, to find alternative opinions to consider, to learn more about “big picture” truth.
Encourage and train your children to do these things while they are still in your home. Model it with your own life, and they will naturally follow suit.
…but test everything; hold fast what is good.Abstain from every form of evil.
1 Thessalonians 5:20-22
A couple of great resources for training young minds to think logically and develop reasoning skills are The Thinking Toolbox: Thirty-five Lessons That Will Build Your Reasoning Skills
and The Fallacy Detective: Thirty-Eight Lessons on How to Recognize Bad Reasoning
Purpose to train your children not to blindly believe and accept everything they’re told in the media (or through Hollywood!), but rather to sift through it and seek the truth.
Train Your Children to Share the Gospel
People need the Lord! And God has chosen human beings to declare the Truth of His words and salvation plan to others.
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
Romans 10:14
One of the greatest tools you could ever give your children is to train them how to share the Good News of Jesus with others.
Something our family did for years was that every day after dinner, we would watch a couple of Ray Comfort’s Youtube videos as a family. In these short video’s he uses a specific method that even children can grasp and understand in who to simply and effectively appeal to the conscience of those with whom they come into contact.
You may search for Living Waters University on Youtube, and look for videos such as the following (there are hundreds of them):
Investing in a books such as the following would be great resources in equipping your children for the task:
Faith Is for Weak People: Responding to the Top 20 Objections to the Gospel by Ray Comfort
Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions
There are countless ways in which you can prepare your children for life. We are assured in Scripture that if we “train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6
We need to realise that the world has shifted gear and our focus as parents needs to be razor sharp in preparing our beloved children to be thinking, discerning, and God fearing adults who stand out and shine brightly in the darkness.
“Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Revelation 7:10
