Hey, homeschoolers! If you've been discouraged lately, know that I can relate. I've been through a season that has diminished my courage to keep podcasting, writing, and building relationships. I went through similar seasons while homeschooling.
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Sponsor: NIV Application Bible



There are three lies the enemy tells us that can deflate us and three responses that can get us homeschooling courageously again. Before I share them I want to thank the NIV Application Bible for sponsoring the podcast.



I am taking the three lies from a biblical account that is well known to you if you're familiar with Scripture. In Luke 4:1-12, we read that Jesus fasted for 40 days and was hungry. Hungry seems like an understatement, but I like the word for our purposes. We are often hungry for things in our homeschooling: hungry for order and organization, hungry for our children's hearts to be turned toward us and the Lord, hungry for our husbands to be our partners in every sense of the word. We can be hungry for so many other desires that have gone unsatisfied--a return to health for us or our family members, financial provision, healing in relationships.
Lie #1: There is no help.



When we are hungry, the devil comes calling. To Jesus, the devil said, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” I've read excellent theological commentaries on this statement, but when the devil tempts me this way, he is saying, "There is no help. Meet this need yourself. God hasn't provided and He won't. It's time for you to do something." And with my classic "If it is to be, it's up to me" attitude, that's what I so often do.



I research. I consult. I buy books, courses, supplements. And when I remain hungry, I spend even more time trying to find the answer to my need. Never mind the fact that most of the time the food that will fill this aching need of mine is not what I'm shopping for. The food that fills me comes from the Lord often unexpectedly, subtley, gradually.



While there is nothing inherently wrong with looking for the equivalent of bread when we're hungry, Jesus tells the devil that we need more than what's available in this world to live. In fact, it's been when I have stopped trying to fill my own gnawing need that it seems my needs are attended to as they were for Jesus.



The devil says to us: "Meet your own need because God won't." Our response can be to repeat to ourselves Psalm 27:14: "Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."



A book that has helped me so much in waiting on the Lord is Hind Feet for High Places. I have read a chapter a day and it feels like I am journeying with the main character Much-Afraid every step of the way.



Lie #2: There is no Holy One.
When we are in a discouraging season, the devil comes back with lie number 2. There is no Holy One. The devil shows Jesus the kingdoms of the world and says, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” In this, the devil shares a partial truth. The Bible calls him the prince of this world with some power and control. That is true.



In times of vulnerability, we can start to believe that he's the ultimate authority. Worldly steps to success may seem better than waiting on God to meet our family's needs in homeschooling or our personal needs.