Courageously Raising Up Arrows

“My God is so big, so strong, and so mighty, there’s nothing my God cannot do!” I hear my three-year-old sing over and over while my phone buzzes with messages about the assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025. We tend to remember what we are doing when we hear news of incredible tragedies, global or personal, because they cause our lives to slow down a little bit as we take in what’s going on in the present moment, say prayers of “God, help us,” and try to remember what we planned to cook for dinner that night.

Charles Spurgeon once said, "Worldly ease is a great enemy to faith. It loosens the joints of holy zeal and snaps sinews of sacred courage.” These types of tragedies have a way of shaping us. They affect our nation at large, whether for good or for evil. And for Christians, they  call us to have courage and embolden us to speak out against the evil forces of darkness running rampant in this present age, as we try to be faithful where we’ve been called. For most of us, that won’t be on a speaking platform at a college campus, or creating video content as a public influencer called to a discernment ministry. Our greatest place of influence is within the walls of our own homes.

Faithfulness in this present age is seeking to understand the implications of worldviews that uphold the values of cultural Marxism, moral relativism, and post modernism and how they are antithetical to a biblical worldview. We fight against the pulls of the cultural drift. We study our Bibles and seek to learn more about our God and his character each day. We discipline ourselves to have entertainment standards that honor God. We aren’t shy to speak the truth, remembering that “the weapons of our warfare are not against flesh and blood, but have the divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). 

Because of Christ, it matters that we daily get up and put on the armor of God. It matters that we fight the world, the flesh, and the devil. It matters that we seek to be joyful and content. And it matters that we evangelize our children.

We won't have true peace and true freedom until we reach the Celestial City. But I think what saddens us most, what we have trouble putting a finger on sometimes, is that our country was uniquely designed to protect our unalienable rights. In under 300 years, generations of Americans have drifted away from the biblical values that were once understood as a nation. John Adams once said, “Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” And now the tide has shifted, and as a country we cannot discern the differences between liberty and license.

I think it’s imperative that we use our present liberty to develop and promote virtue and diligently teach our children the gospel and whole counsel of God. There’s not time to sit around and fret over the fate of our country. We press on and dig our boots a little deeper as we strive to be faithful with those who have been entrusted to us. As parents, we’ve been given the primary responsibility to do this, and I believe that is how we can affect change. We can’t let this generation get lost on our watch. 

We teach our children that God is sovereign and good, that He is “before all things, and in Him, all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17), and “what man means for evil, God means for good” (Genesis 50:20). We help them see that the greatest tragedy that will ever pass, the crucifixion of Christ, was ordained by a loving heavenly Father, so that we could one day be reconciled to Him through the blood of His beloved Son. 

We bring them week in and week out to a gospel preaching, faithful church and show them what it means to worship even before they can understand theology. We don’t assume they know the gospel just because they went to church camp or listen to Christian radio with us. We use our words to communicate truth in order to echo the Great Communicator. We don’t assume their education implies a biblical worldview if the foundation doesn’t start with, “In the beginning, God created.” 

We raise them in the discipline and instruction of The Lord. We don’t let secular psychology or Instagram reels define for us what love looks like.  We aren’t afraid to tell our toddlers, “No,” and we set appropriate boundaries because they must learn that life is not about them. We don’t ignore their sin because the price paid for it was just too high. We understand that many of the decisions we make for them and our households are not morally neutral.

We teach them the value of hard work and how to steward their gifts, talents, and possessions well for God’s glory. We want them to be productive members of society one day, to contribute and influence others for good, and it starts with teaching them to put up the tricycle when they’re finished riding it and put their dirty socks in the laundry basket. 

We teach them songs like “I’m in the Lord’s Army” and discuss what it may look like one day to be a soldier for Christ. We emulate what it looks like to be a defender of the faith and pray that it will one day be their faith, too. Above all, we pray that our efforts would honor God, that He would graciously save their souls, while the tune of our hearts is, “Should nothing of our efforts stand, no legacy survive, unless The Lord does raise the house, in vain its builders strive.”

I think our temptation can be to assume that we’re just small potatoes, that what we do at home will have no impact on a larger scale. Our area of influence may be a bit smaller than those we platform on a stage, social media, or the public square, but it’s no less significant. We could be raising a Timothy, or the Lois or Eunice that impacted his faith. We’re raising arrows that we will one day shoot out into the world.  There won’t be medals presented at our funerals, but in these acts of obedience, however wide they do reach, we will be rewarded an inheritance that cannot be shaken. And Lord willing, on that final day, we will sing before the throne next to our fellow coheirs, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” There is nothing my God cannot do.