CHOIS Connection is published quarterly by Christian Homeschoolers Of Idaho State.
This article appeared in a previous issue.
CHOIS Connection
Resource Review
by Suzanne Reid
"No Ordinary Child
Unlocking the Leader Within Your Child"
Spring 2009
It is not a book containing steps to easy parenting. Rather, it is a battle cry to parents willing to stand against the culture, which wages war for their children's souls.
In a day when Christian parents are content to follow society's proven methodology for raising mediocre young adults, Christian author and speaker Denise Mira stands like a watchman on the wall crying out to parents who are willing to sacrifice it all, lay down their lives, take up their swords and engage in the battle of their lives -- the battle for their children's souls and the restoration of our civilization.
We live in a culture that is seriously dysfunctional. Many of us see no intrinsic value to our lives. We fill our days with entertainment; we eat food with little nutritive effect; we produce products with built-in obsolescence. Though our government promises, it cannot save. These are desperate days, requiring desperate measures says Mira. "Our world stands at an Exodus moment in history, and it is demanding a Moses generation to come forth and bring deliverance to a society held captive by sin."
In her book No Ordinary Child, Mira presents the dire need for a generation of believers to stand up and lead our culture out of its mire, and she encourages parents that they are best equipped to raise these leaders. She warns that to accomplish this assignment requires revolution. Insurgent parents will need to rise up out of bed each morning with boxing gloves on, ready to fight on several fronts. God will raise up leaders for His glory only when they study His Word, obey His commands, repent from sin, and, most importantly, pray for His guidance.
With passion and conviction, Denise summons parents to live counter culturally in order to raise "no ordinary" children. She says we cannot settle for ordinary children, who look, act, and think like the culture. We need to revolt against anything that stands against God's Word and His plan for our children. She calls parents to "break out of sub-normal." Denise says that we have been trained by our culture to accept less than what the Bible tells us to expect from our children, so that when we meet outstanding children, we think they are abnormal. She calls parents to repent of worldly thinking and take on the mind of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. "At any point in our lives where we've believed a lie -- what our culture has taught us that is contrary to what our Bible teaches -- we must allow the truth of God's Word to come in, expose the lie, and undo what we've believed," says Mira.
Denise urges parents to take back their God-given sphere of influence. Only parents have the responsibility before God to raise Godly children. We cannot expect our children to grow up and accomplish their God-given responsibilities, if we delegate their spiritual training to churches, which spoon-feed our growing young adults baby food and rock music. She says "So many are waiting for God to 'work their land' when God has given us that job." She quotes Proverbs 28:19, which states "He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." We must not be caught wasting our days on empty pursuits, rather than training our children.
The job of parenting belongs to both Dad and Mom, says Mira. She highlights the importance of Dad's words by recommending the reading of Proverbs 4, 5, 6, and 7, which are letter from a father to his son. She asks Dad to consider his influence on his children and to pray for them. She gives a beautiful example of a praying father from Scripture. Samson's dad Manoah responded to the angel of the Lord upon hearing the good news that his wife was to expect a baby boy by saying, "When your words are fulfilled, what is to be the rule for the boy's life and work?" Denise says this Dad was asking how he would prepare to properly train Samson. "He was preoccupied with building a man of God before his birth!"
Denise beckons Mom to live counter culturally. Mom must reject the lures of the business world and die daily to worldly ambitions, former independence or anything else, with which the world might tempt her. She reminds Mom that Colossians 3:3 says, "For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God." As Mom whole-heartedly engages in the calling to train her children, she will be blessed.
Referring to Scripture throughout her book Mira gives parents a reason for their actions. She recommends that parents ask God to reveal their children's talents and futures so that they can better train them. According to Ephesians 2:10, "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." She says God has our children's job descriptions waiting for them at birth, and we need to learn what they are.
Denise says that no matter your child's physical condition, she is convinced that "inherent greatness resides within every fiber of his being." She says that the Word of God tells us that, "We are His offspring." (Acts 17:28) Parents must ask God to allow them to see their child through His perfect, discerning, and gracious eyes–according to their destiny, not their history.
It requires more than simply inspiration and vision to raise a leader. One must also have a strategy, and that comes only by getting on our knees and asking God for a practical plan for our individual children. She says that we don't want "quality kids," according to the world's system, but children with character, integrity, godliness and world-changing, eternal purpose in their lives.
In the second half of the book, chapters eleven through nineteen, Denise provides the practical steps to develop world changers. She details what those children look like and how to implement changes in a family to raise leaders. Using examples from her own family of five boys, Denise shares personal parenting tips, which are invaluable and convicting.
Throughout the book she challenges parents to start with what they have in hand to train the children, with which God has blessed them. She encourages parents that by investing the little they have today, kingdom principles will take over. She refers back to the example of Moses, whom she devotes a whole chapter to at the beginning of her book. If Moses' parents had let fear set in when they heard the "nightly news" that Pharaoh was going to kill all of the Hebrew baby boys, they never would have set Moses in the basket on the Nile. "They believed in a sovereign God who was bigger than any natural limitations. God met them at the end of their natural resources and transcended their meager offerings with His perfect provision."
No matter how little a family's natural resources, Denise reminds parents that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). Parents are not to covet what others have and mourn what they don't have. She says that too many parents remain poor and wretched, blind and naked, because they do not tap into greater stores locked up in heavenly places. Instead they deny the truth of what is already in their hands. Denise instructs parents, "Use what's in your hands!"
This battle for our children soul is incessant, and parents must make war on many circumstances in their children's lives. She says parents cannot make peace when God says make war. Parents must be ruthless with the their own sin and that of their children. Parents cannot resign themselves to giving up because it becomes a battle with their kids. They cannot be casual about guarding their children from the devil's traps. She quotes Ephesians 4:27, "Do not give the devil a foothold." Parents have a brief period of time in their children's lives when they are the gatekeepers of their souls. They must not let this opportunity pass.
Denise emphasizes the importance of modeling the behavior that parents desire in their children. She returns to the example of Moses, who just like his parents, lived by faith, chose to please God by going against the current, and was not afraid of men. "Parents who desire their kids to soar, best not be limping along themselves."
In chapter fifteen, Denise gives parents the permission to parent. She encourages parents that they are the experts, and that as people of God, they will be in conflict with the system -- the Pharaoh of our day. Parents must not apologize for making unpopular decisions for their children. It is their business to decide what is best for their children according to God's Word. She warns that too many parents fear their inferiority in this task of child rearing, and she reminds that God has not given them the spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7). Being the opposite of faith, fear will cancel God's promises. She instructs parents to stand up for what's right for themselves and their children.
Training our children does not include indulging them. Denise devotes a whole chapter outlining how unwholesome this practice is and describing what it looks like in a family. She reminds parents to think on James 1: 2-4, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." Indulgence circumvents God's work.
Mira ends the book giving the glory to God. God gets the credit for raising leaders who are a sweet aroma to Him and those being saved. Denise claims, "If you lived in my house, you'd know that anything precious that comes to pass in our children comes from Him."
This book is replete with instructive Scripture, upon which parents should meditate to aid in this challenging call of training children to be leaders for the glory of God. It is a training manual for parents, providing practical tips and suggestions. It is not a book containing steps to easy parenting. Rather, it is a battle cry to parents willing to stand against the culture, which wages war for their children's souls.
Suzanne Reid and her husband Brian are in their twelfth year of home education. They graduated their eldest child in June 2008, and he is now attending Patrick Henry College in Virginia. It is their joy and pleasure to participate in their children's education and to see God's provision and direction in their children's lives. To contact Suzanne with any comments or questions, email her at sreid@iche-idaho.org.
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