Education might be expensive, but...

When you hang one of these in your home, you are putting the world on notice...if you truly mean what it says.

We live by a few simple principles or creeds in the Tony C household. One of the most important of those is the Big Three List of Priority:

1. God
2. Family
3. Education

Of course, the list could be expanded to...say...10 or more listed priorities, but I've found there's enough conflict created by just these three in the order we’ve placed them. But since this post isn't about household priorities, I'll focus on #3 in the list - education.

Both my wife and I are college graduates and the first in both cases to hold baccalaureates in our extended families. Others have followed, but we were the original trailblazers for education in our families. I give credit in both cases to our parents for motivating and supporting the endeavors. Education was important to both families, and we continue to carry that banner today and maybe even put some added emphasis.

There are, however, two distinct reasons that education is stressed. As far as secular academic education goes, the importance is placed on excellence and the choices in career paths that come with that commitment. I didn’t stop after my baccalaureate and have continued with graduate work with the ultimate goal of a doctorate (you’re an inspiration fellow Kingdom Blogger Joyce). My wife, Candice, also plans to work on a graduate degree in education once the house settles down a bit from baby-dom. Still, it boils down to the more emphasis and dedication being placed on education, the more choices there seems to be when it comes to employment and the types of employment.

Biblical education takes on a completely different impetus. Both Candice and I grew up attending Sunday School. Like our girls are now, we learned a lot of the fundamental stories central to a solid Christian belief system. We both feel, however, that continued biblical learning is essential to a strong, faithful walk with Christ, and we try to emphasis to the teenager now (and her younger sisters later) that reading God’s Word is important…but more important is LEARNING from God’s Word with every opportunity.

Some people have a hard time with the concept of learning something new from reading the same book repeatedly over the course of a lifetime. As a matter of fact, I was once one of those people. I finally came to realize and accept just how vast the knowledge of God truly is and understand that even learning something new every day from His Word over the course of a thousand lifetimes…well…wouldn’t even be a significant start to enlightenment. Sorry my Buddhist friends.

Education counts…secular and biblical.