Foto Friday (school days)

Here's what we've been up to lately. We've had some busy and fun days here at home. Tomorrow we're venturing out to explore Savannah. Hopefully we'll have some nice photos of that to share with you next week.

Answers continued

What about dinosaurs? Don't archaeologists dig up all those old fossils? Did Noah's flood really happen? I thought it's been proven that the earth is like millions and millions of years old?

These are just some of the very important questions that my children were interested in asking. They came away from the talks with some great answers. Yes, dinosaurs are actually mentioned in the Bible. I recommend that you go on an exhibition in Job. Again it's important to remember that science has limits, so with that in mind- what do fossils really tell us? Many people assume that it means the objects or organisms lived and/or died together. Really all they tell us though is that the objects were at some point buried together. This is a key difference. There is also lots of geological evidence of the flood, for instance fossilized shellfish found as high as the Himilayas. Carbon dating is not reliable, although many scientists pretend it is. It is reliant on a perfectly constant rate of decay and it has been absolutely proven that many conditions have dramatically accelerated the rate of decay in the observable past alone. It also affected by atmospheric levels of carbon which are not constant either.

Evolution as a belief system is problematic. I won't even begin to go there, but would encourage anyone interested to do some reading, it's readily available. In short, there just really isn't an scientific evidence to support it. Where are all those transistional species anyway?!? Macro evolution (the kind which transforms say an ameoba into a frog over time) simply does not exist. It is true that though that micro evolution, species adapation, does occur. We can clearly see that at work in around us today, take for instance dog or horse breeding.

Finally, questions of race and family origin can sometimes be confusing for children and adults alike. Why do we have 'races' at all if we're all descended from Adam and Eve? Quite simply we are all different shades of the same color- brown. As we spread outward after the flood our skin color changed as a result of climate. It's also confusing for children to realize that we are all descended from a brother/sister pair. This did not create genetic havoc simply because the very first people were absolutely genetically perfect. God made them that way! In fact the further we are from the fall the more genetic flaws we have, making it highly dangerous genetically to marry a close relative today as this would greatly magnify our genetic imperfections.

Like with most every issue I consider this all chiefly from the mother point of view. I believe that equipping my children with these answers is so very important. It's both unkind and unwise to send them out into the world unprepared to refute the false information that will surround them. Even more importantly they came home last weekend not just excited about dinosaurs, rocks, and floods but truly on fire for God! In my opinion this area is a powerful and often overlooked evangelism tool.

Okay, enough said. I had planned to post a reading list, but won't get a chance to do so today. If your interested, drop me a line and I'll share my personal faves and do check out the answers website I linked to yesterday, they'll certainly point you in the right direction as well.

Got answers?

My girls and their Dad went to hear Ken Ham from the Answers ministry speak locally last Friday. I think their ministry really is an important one. I do believe that Christianity truly is under assault and the creation vs. evolution issue is a key battle in this larger war. I also think it's important to realize that the debate is not about science versus religion either. The reality of the situation is that evolution is an atheist religion and is not based on science at all. True science involves making observations about the world and being able to replicate those results. This simply isn't possible in the case of evolution. Science has limits and I think that if students and all people understood this it would eliminate much of the confusion around this issue. Evolution is a belief system based on suppositions and personal opinions about the past, and is simply incorrect.

In my humble opinion it's also important to remember that once we begin to place our faith in the words of men, rather than the word of God (the only one who was there, by the way) we begin speeding down a dangerous road. Once you question Genesis' literal account of creation you can easily make the leap to doubting other parts of scripture including the Gospel itself.

Yes, I realize that creationism can be divisive, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss it. In some cases true neutrality just isn't possible! I hope we've learned by watching society degrade over the past several decades that we do not live in a vacumn. We cannot remove God and religion from our lives without letting something else seep in. That something else has been secular humanism at best and atheism at worst. We are just now beginning to see the 'fruit' of that.

My girls got some great information and received answers to a lot of very important questions. I think it's important to be able to discuss such specifics with your children and I 'll touch on those briefly tomorrow. I'm also going to list a few reading materials we've found helpful. So feel free to tune-out if you're not interested, I promise to be off my 'soapbox' and on to other subjects after that. In the meantime I'd invite you to check out Answers in Genesis, they say it way better than I ever could.

Houston, we have lift off!

I know, there have been way too many 'Foto-less Fridays' lately. We've had a few camera glitches around here. Littlest has been pulling up and cruising around for weeks, but is has recently progressed to standing on her own and attempting to take some steps. Hopefully they'll be more photo updates soon.

The gift of time

I came across this short video today and it blessed me. Feel free to check out the rest of their site as well, great stuff.

http://www.tacmovie.com/

Hide your woks!

Some days I need a bit of humor and my girls always seem to step up and provide it.

This morning we were working on P.'s picture journal where each day she draws a picture and then writes a description of it. It's been helping her learn to put words and sentences together. Anyway, she draws this really sweet scene, all of us outside together in a flower filled field and adds the following caption...

"Paige and her family like to take woks."

I know, she certainly meant "walks" and it all makes sense phonetically as well. We're surely making progress on that front. But, just in case, I'd hide my wok if I were you. With 6 wok takers on the lose it just might not be safe :-).

Cooperation

Ever wonder what would happen if we sincerely started cooperating with God?



I'll confess that I'm a complainer sometimes, even in my prayers *blushes*. I'll sometimes pray things like, "Oh God, things would have been easier if you had just let it happen this way... (read my way)." Or even better, "God are you sure that I have to do this?" My favorite of all goes, "God, why does this have to be so hard?"



During a talk with a friend the other day they pointed out the wise, but obvious answer to the whole issue of cooperation versus complaining. It was a truth I needed to hear. Here it is in a nutshell:



If you work and cooperate with God, you can then pray that he'll do something through you, rather than simply for you.



Point taken.