Taking it Year by Year

A common response when one asks whether another will be homeschooling all the way through high school is, "We are just going to take it year by year." I think it's a legitimate response, and I have frequently replied this when asked the previous question. I never thought anything of it until this weekend at an all-day homeschool workshop. The workshop host discouraged this answer, explaining that you would never respond, "I am going to take it year by year" if someone asked how long you will be a Christian. I see her point, but the analogy sort of breaks down because comparing homeschooling to being a Christian just isn't a fair comparison.

In homeschooling, that's a fair response because it's probably wrong to assume that you would homeschool exactly what you plan all the way through until high school. I don't necessarily know what I'll be doing in a year let along the next 12 years. I could get sick and be unable to homeschool, I could be widowed and that would change my approach, heaven forbid I might die and I don't want my husband to feel tied to homeschooling if it's not something he's able to handle. The point is, we don't know what God has planned to sanctify us! Perhaps our sanctification will not include homeschooling.

I think this is why the Bible says, "Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"--yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." James 4:13-17

A more appropriate response to the question, "How long will you homeschool," might be, "I would really like to homeschool all the way through high school but I'm holding that decision in an open hand and evaluate this decision regularly to see if it's in line with what God is telling me."

[As an aside- how come when kids are schooled in public or private options, this question isn't even an issue? It's usually only asked of the homeschooler. How come our culture feels comfortable questioning (and therefore judging) the homeschooler when it would be ridiculous to ask the same questions of a non-homeschooler? Additionally, why are really any questions about how I school tolerable to ask? I don't go around asking public teachers what curriculum they are using or how long they are going to keep teaching their students. Just keep your questions to yourself unless you really want to know, which usually you don't or don't need to know. <endrant>]

Now to the point of "taking it year by year" for the Christian. The workshop lady has a point, and that's that we don't reevaluate our walk with Christ every year. This is true. But if one were judging by my actions, I probably don't walk with Christ every day, so I don't actually know if I will be walking with him in another year. I know intimately that I am "chief of sinners," but I also know that His grace is irresistible and he, in kindness, always draws me back to Him despite my heart and behavior.

I identify so much with Peter. Proud, zealous Peter. "And Jesus said to them, 'You will all fall away, for it is written, "I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered." But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.' Peter said to him, 'Even though they all fall away, I will not.' And Jesus said to him, 'Truly I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.' But he said emphatically, 'If I must dies with you, I will not deny you.' And they all said the same." Mark 14:26-31

Very shortly after this exchange, Peter does deny his Lord, three times as Jesus predicted.

We do not know what God has for us and how he is going to use it. Homeschooling or not, we should hold these things in an open hand. As James writes, "All such boasting is evil."