Everyone would like to know, “What can I do to better protect my family?”
I cannot think of a better time to recommend the book Protecting Your Family in Dangerous Times.
Published in 2002, this book asks, “What goes through your mind in those moments when your children leave home for another day’s activities? Just how sure are you that God will bring them home safely?”
Most parents do a good job of protecting our children by teaching them common sense: Don’t cross the street without looking, don’t unbuckle your car seat before I turn off the motor, don’t walk on Nevada Boulevard after dark, don’t go out with the kind of boy who is likely to make you a statistic, don’t use substances, if you purchase a crotch rocket, you better pay for your own funeral because your life expectancy is about 18 months, on and on the list goes. We are conscientious, and our teachings help our children avoid countless errors which could take them out of the game early. And this book does include the importance of parental discipline and teaching children to hear God’s voice and obey it.
But what about the things no one could predict, the odds we can't improve?
Kutz gives an example of the Passover which the Israelites experienced in Egypt. In that situation, clear instruction was given as to how to avoid the bad thing, the violence that would pass through the land that night. Israeli families who followed God’s instructions were spared, those who did not experienced destruction right along with the Egyptians. Bad things happened, but in that situation, people were given a choice to receive protection, or not.
A few weeks ago Balkan Brink wrote:
“I would say God is a liberal. Think about it. From the garden of Eden to today he allows us to follow him or not. Even God, at this point of human history, does not force his will on individuals.”
I would play off this and say that God is pro-choice, in the literal and all-encompassing sense of that word as reflected over and over in the Bible:
Choose life – or choose death
By now I imagine that my reader, deeply grieved over the violence and angry at the senselessness of it all, may be asking somewhat cynically, “So, are you saying that if Emily Keyes’ parents and the Amish girls’ parents had read this book, they would still be alive today?”
As Aslan said to Lucy in The Dawn Treader, “Child, I tell you no one’s story but your own.” I can’t know what might have made a difference for them. But it behooves me to ask what might make a difference for me and my children.
