True Wisdom

True Wisdom

Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom.

Proverbs 3:7

Some time ago my husband and I were driving around an Amish community in Missouri when we came upon a sign welcoming us into an Amish workshop. It was a school day, but I wasn’t surprised to see a young man, no older than fifteen, working at his father’s side as they crafted handmade hickory rockers. While the majority of Amish education starts in a one-room schoolhouse, it doesn’t end there. A son learning his father’s trade is just as valuable as any book work.

The goal of an Amish education is not to prepare a child for the workforce; it’s to prepare him or her to live in an Amish community. That’s why Amish education ends after the eighth grade.

In addition to book education, Amish children learn about caring for animals, farming, carpentry, and home skills by living and working alongside their parents. The Amish believe that school knowledge should never encourage a student to attend college and follow a profession.

How does this apply to non-Amish children? Sometimes schools foster a sense of competition, but God’s Word instructs us to show preference for others (see Romans 12:10). Children may be taught about evolution, but God’s Word speaks of creation (see Genesis 1:1). Many schools prize individualism, materialism, and secular thinking, which can conflict with the qualities parents are cultivating at home.

Whatever school choice we make for our children, the most important thing we can teach them is to know the Lord. Allowing others to become our children’s primary influence or refusing to pass on our knowledge of the Lord’s goodness is a recipe for disaster, as we can clearly see in Judges 2:10: “After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the LORD or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel.”

Our children need to learn how to thrive in this world, but more than that, they need to learn how to serve God, their families, and their communities.

Dear heavenly Father, let me never seek wisdom for wisdom’s sake or appear good and wise in my own eyes. I long to know Christ and the wisdom He gives.