“I took my family to vote today, and we cast our votes for biblically qualified candidates. I will now perform an infinitely more important duty: to gather my family around the dinner table, to feed their bodies with a meal prepared by my beloved bride, and to feed their souls with the Bread of Life and the Living Water – the Word of God read in our family worship time.
I am convinced that this simple daily routine will do far more (beyond comparison) to change (for the good and the glory of God) our family, community, region, state, and nation, than voting for civil magistrates ever could.” -Jason Matyas
A profound, too-often-missed, simple truth posted on a Facebook friend’s wall last night.
The rhythms, the daily routines, the mundane, the prosaic–it’s the cadence of life that makes us who we are. What fills our routines and cadences? What kind of people are we making….people who will one day themselves grow up to select our nation’s leaders?
Will they be people who govern themselves and therefore will not desire or need to be governed? Self-government is the beginning of a complete human being. I think we don’t think on that enough.
Will they be people who “fear the Lord and eschew evil”? People who trust in God and not in men?
I’m encouraged to put my hand to the plow and be faithful in the daily business of raising a new generation; to live a life dependent on the transforming power of the gospel….even in the little things.
We build nations by building our homes. “Oh Lord, make me faithful!”
“He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
24 comments
I was feeling so anxious and (yes) fearful this morning, Kelly. Thanks for the boost.
Oh…Amen. God is our judge. God is our lawgiver. God is our King. God will save us. (Isaiah 32-33) Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will trust in the Name of the Lord our God.
Kelly ~
Thank you for the words of encouragement…blessings and my the Lord give you encouragement and strength today.
By His Grace ~
Jarnette
My husband and I not were so nervous last night and then feeling sick to our stomachs this morning. We’re just going to plow harder, pray harder and with God’s help build our home…better. Families, homes…it’s our only chance and choice for true change…because it all starts there.
I have been burdened this whole election season, not so much for our country, but for how those Americans who call themselves Christians are living. We complain about corrupt leaders, but don’t live Godly lives ourselves or tell others how to know Christ. I wrote a post this morning listing the things that we as citizens of heaven are Biblical required to do during our time on earth, but I did leave out the raising of the next generation. So, so important!
Thank you, Kelly. This was beautiful. I was singing the blue-state blues last night — every race on our ballot went Democratic — but seeing this post this morning with the beautiful quote from your friend helps me put it all in perspective.
“Oh Lord, make me faithful!” Amen.
Thanks for the vision!
Can I copy Charity? =) Perspective is sorely lacking during times like these… Thank you, Kelly, for this post. Fear God, not man. Our state voted in a democratic woman who hates homeschoolers as our new “Supt. of Education”. Talk about feeling ill. Our oldest child is 4, so we haven’t “started” yet; but, she wants to lower the compulsory school age to 5 (it’s 7 now) and add lots of regulations. =P yuck. Like this post points out, though, we need to focus on raising our children for God, instead of focusing on how bad the rest of the world is falling apart. We can’t help the world when we’re falling apart, too!
Thank you for this beautiful perspective.
I hope Mr. Matyas’s children will have a free country to live in as adults, free to actually govern themselves because better candidates were chosen, without having to worry about expressing joy in Christmas or ministering to others being looked on with suspicion from the government. I’ll always be glad for my vote. We almost saved the country from more young deaths and debt, so it is not full of lost people.
Oh I am praying for your nation today. And you are very right. It all starts in the home.
I never got a chance to reply to your comments on the other post, but I hope it’s okay to reply to you here! I never actually said- I’m Australian! And I feel very fortunate not to have had to vote myself, because I wouldn’t have known what to do. I posted the link, because I felt he made the case well that a Christian could in good conscience vote for Romney.
Our nation heads to the polls mid-next year. I think we’ll be in a similar shape, unless we do some fast repenting and turning back to God as a nation before then.
I pray for you often and love your blog!
hello tyranny good bye america
Don’t say that; we STILL have a say.
oh no we don’t. i am sorry to break it to all of you but with a stroke of his pen, BO can now pass an exective order and have my (and your) children dragged off to the gov’t school. and have them permantly removed from our homes for that matter. who is there to stop him – eric holder? 🙂 LOL. if you don’t recognise that the rule of law died last night then you haven’t been paying very close attention for the last 4 years and you are in for a rude awakening. our freedom died last night and we should all be in mourning. it is a sad day for America and i don’t think people understand that we are not going to be ALLOWED to go about our “simple, daily routine”. apparently the battles fought against statism by HSLDA for YEARS have already been forgotten. without our constitutional rights – we are sweden.
The president does not have absolute power, Lisa, and I’ve been well-aware of events in the last four years. Half the country is very ticked off, and we will not allow him to take everything; last night gave him no more power than he already had.
he has done enough damage. in two short years we will have another election and if the house goes to the dems we will be in even more trouble. he now has four more years to bribe and brainwash this contry.
Please remember this, lucyt. Any president, whether Republican or Democrat, is not Dictator-in-Chief. Most of us Americans, whether we are Republicans, Democrats, independents, or favored third-party candidates, are not stupid. We will not stand for tyranny of the type you fear. I believe that America still remains a great country. Our priest said last Sunday that this is the time for all of us, regardless of our political views, to become stop being less politically polarized and begin working together to solve our country’s problems at the local, state, and national levels.
And after all, God is still in control!!!
I understand that God is in control and I understand that he is not pleased and I am scared for the lost in this country and world!
Lisa,
If I could offer you some information to assuage your fears…
“Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states, but because the federal government has no direct authority to regulate education, each state is free to implement its own legal structure for home education. Across the United States, we see a variety of statutes under which parents may educate their children at home.” HSLDA
Also, private school options are paramount for officials and and their families (which is how many homeschooling rights are protected.) Even the bureaucrats, at least at this point, wish to keep their right to private school available.
And then finally, you can be sure with the rise of the number of homeschoolers, not just in the conservative, Christian communities but abroad, that there would most likely be a civil war in the incident someone just “suddenly” tried to strip us of those rights. There are too many of us and we are not complacent.
Kelly,
In addition to the homeschoolers you mentioned, aren’t there a growing number of homeschoolers who aren’t necessarily conservative Christians? They might be observant Jews or non-Christians unhappy with their local public schools who don’t have a suitable private school alternative available.
Yes, there are…that’s what I meant by “abroad”…groups of all types are turning to homeschooling for all different reasons.
Great insight. Here is an encouraging broadcast that takes your ideas a little further. https://generationswithvision.com/
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