“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” James 1:5.

Perhaps if we ask any Christian parent what they most desire for their children, the answer will be: “That they be saved.” However, the reality for most today, in any denomination, is that a large number of children have drifted away from God. What is wrong? Is this a generation that simply wasn't predestined for salvation? Or is there something wrong with us and our efforts to save them?

Some time ago, a little bird taught me a great lesson about this. Since we live in the countryside, rats occasionally appear around our property. We were struggling with a rat on our porch. We had already tried several types of mousetraps without success, so we decided to use a glue trap. We placed bait in the middle of the trap and went to sleep, hoping to catch the rat overnight. The next morning, however, what we found was a panicked little bird completely stuck to the trap.

I was very frustrated by what I had caused and decided to save it. The damage to its little body was significant, as the glue was very strong, and its entire chest and wings were stuck due to its many attempts to escape.

After much effort, I managed to separate it from the paper, and now I needed to remove the glue from its body. I started cutting the downy feathers from its chest and several feathers from its wings that were very stuck. Then, thinking about what to do, I remembered that we sometimes used cooking oil to remove jackfruit sap from knives and other utensils. I applied oil to the bird's wings and managed to remove some of the glue, but not much.

I remember at that moment wishing I could find a manual on how to solve that specific problem, but I knew it probably didn't exist. So I decided to check Google and discovered that other people who had gone through the same experience had applied flour and rubbed it on the wings to remove the glue. The problem was that I had already applied the oil, so when I added the flour, the poor little bird ended up completely “breaded.”

I was growing increasingly frustrated with my attempts, but I finally managed to clean it enough and set up a cage where we usually put injured birds that appear around the house. I put in food and water and thought about leaving it there until its feathers grew back so I could release it again.

Just as I was about to put it inside, it escaped from my hands and started hopping on the floor. I ran after it to catch it, and without thinking, I pulled the poor little thing by its tail, but the only thing I caught was the tail, and the bird kept hopping, now tailless. My frustration grew with each new attempt to save it. Now I had a tailless little bird, still somewhat smeared with glue, oil, and flour.

I finally managed to capture it and put it in the cage, imagining that I would now have to keep it there for a long time until all its tail feathers grew back. I felt more at ease and went to do my household chores, as I had already lost almost two hours on that “adventure.”

A few hours passed, and my daughter kept going to the cage to check on the bird. One of those times, she came running, screaming and calling for me. I rushed over, and what I saw horrified me. The poor little bird tried to drink water from the small dish, and because it had no tail, it lost its balance, fell into the water, and drowned.

I was extremely frustrated and upset, and I even cried for having caused so much suffering to the poor little thing. A completely healthy little bird died an absurd death, simply because of my clumsy attempts to save it. Why didn't I go straight to the method that would have saved it!

You must be laughing at this story, just like most people do when they hear me tell it. This story, however, is very sad, as it reveals that our best efforts to try and save someone can actually be leading them down the path of perdition.

As parents, we often decide that we will do our best to save our children, so we enroll them in the best schools, attend the church that offers the most activities: Pathfinders, choir, band, etc. We adopt criteria for choosing the movies they watch, the music they listen to, and the activities they participate in, based on what our Christian friends are doing. We join various WhatsApp groups about parenting and even attend family seminars, but time passes, and sometimes we see our children growing up and drifting away from us and from God. Why?

Many times we keep trying to do our best, but fail to seek wisdom from the true source, from “Thus says the Lord.” We fail to believe that the God who created humanity also gave us the manual that teaches us the path to success. We fail to maintain that communion with God that will enable His Spirit to guide us in a specific way. We prefer to rely on what others say or have done, instead of listening to His personalized teachings for us. As a postmodern generation, we feel there's no need to return to the foundations of parenting found in the Bible and in God-inspired counsel. It seems they don't apply to our reality, and we consider YouTube psychologists and educators to be much more up-to-date and to speak our language better, and sometimes we even feel they must have already read God's counsel because they say such coherent things! However, we ourselves don't want to “waste time” studying directly from the source.

God left us a written manual with details on how we can best raise our children for His Kingdom. Besides His Word, we have much precious counsel with specific details on how to raise our children at each stage of life. But have we taken advantage of it?

Sometimes when I speak to parents, I ask how many have read books like Education and Child Guidance and my heart sinks because I see very few hands raised. It concerns me to see parents so eager to follow the best educational methodologies the world offers, but not so eager to study God's educational plan. It concerns me to see parents so busy participating in countless WhatsApp groups about parenting, yet without time to even pay attention to their own children. All these activities can be good things, but they only add to our experience when we first seek God and are grounded in His Word. When we try to save our children without first knowing God's plan, our attempts may be as frustrated as my attempts to save the little bird.

God desires that we seek Him individually. That daily, we may be so close to Him that we can feel He is by our side, strengthening us and showing us what to do, because in this process of seeking Him to save our children, we will be working out our own salvation (Phil 2:12).

And how can we do this? First, by seeking knowledge in His word on how to raise our children; this must be the foundation. Every day, we need to strengthen ourselves as parents, whether through reading, devotionals, or something specific for a problem we are facing. Then, throughout the day, we need to ask for wisdom to put into practice what we have learned. But this alone will not guarantee complete success, because the enemy is constantly around us like a lion, seeking ways to attack our children. So, whenever difficulties arise, we need to seek God and let Him be our “very present help in trouble” (Ps 46:1). And when things seem to be out of our control, we need to intercede for our children and do everything in our power to save them, even if they are already adults and no longer under our roof.

I have had the joy of seeing parents who sometimes live simply, with little formal education, but who seek to practice God's counsel, and the result is that He has blessed them, and their children grow up resolute and spiritually strong. I have also seen parents who, even in their older years, turn to the principles left by God and have achieved victories not only with their adult children but also with their grandchildren through their influence and persistent work and prayer.

God's plans for our children's education are not outdated; they are the best and the only ones that can lead them to salvation. We need to know them individually and study them; we need to live them out in our homes, and by doing so, we will be a living testimony.

The calling of Project Restore has been to help families go through this process so they can raise their children with the certainty of success. That is why we created the Course: Principles of True Education, where through video lessons, parents and educators can gain an overview of God's educational plan, and through reading tips and other supplementary materials, they can study and understand the precious principles left by God.

The world is becoming increasingly cruel, and the enemy's attacks are growing more violent. It is time for us to turn back to “Thus says the Lord” and to be sure that we are firmly rooted in God's Word.

Rute Bazan

‍