The Lost Art of ...

I am sure that you could fill in the blank with many words.  Perhaps domesticity, maybe femininity, or even discipline.  Maybe you have been thinking how the art of home cooking is lost, or the art of homesteading.  While all of these would be true, hubby and I were mulling over the lost art of thinking this morning.  Perhaps this appears most in the home schooling realm when parents give up the "fight" with trying or struggling students, but it also appears in adults who cease learning when they graduate from high school or college.  It appears that when things get difficult, human nature seeks to explain why the effort is not worth it. 

                                   "I don't see the value in higher math"

"I don't need to study a language"                             

"I just can't learn an instrument"

                                       "I've never been good at memorization" 

"My parents didn't need to learn that and they get along fine" 

I have given the reasons more times than I care to admit. 

While discussing it, we came up with many reasons to pursue activities that are difficult, that may seem impractical, or that may be out of our comfort zone.  We pursue activities that cause us to think to exercise our minds.  The great Creator God formed our brains to function at a much higher level than we force them to go.  Our God is a God of order and those higher mathematical principles, the principles of language, and the laws of music emphasize this character of God.  He commands us to memorize His Word (and He didn't limit it to Sunday School children).  He commands us to be light and salt in our world (which might be dimmed or unsavory by uneducated Christians who are content to remain so).

Perhaps you, like me, have been struggling with pursuing some form of thinking (for me it is the Biblical languages and Bible memorization) or perhaps you are a parent who is slowly choosing the "easy" path in homeschooling and thus short-changing your children.  Why not focus on God - his creation, his order, his commands - and pursue a path of THINKING!