Who Are Our Heroes?

Are great athletes always heroes? No, no more than are brilliant men. I had a conversation about a great athlete awhile ago and was asked if I did not find him inspiring. I mentioned his divorce and the resentment his children had at his being gone so often, and said that while he may be a good athlete, he has failed in those areas of greater importance. So, no, he is not a hero. This same principle applies to straight A students. Does the Harvard graduate with honors automatically mean that this student is an inspiration? Before we proclaim anyone a hero, his or whole character needs to be looked at and ecspecially in the areas of priorities or areas that should be a priority. So does this mean that a child who does poorly in his or her studies, but is a hard worker and is striving to follow God is a hero. Yes. That is what a hero is. Someone who is really striving to follow God, inspite of difficulties.

"It would be better for us not to be able to cast up a single sum in addition and be humble before the Lord than to have ever so much knowledge and permit that knowledge to lead us to destruction." (Wilford Woodruff's Journals 5:428.)

Is this really true? Would it be better that we are ignorant in the three R's as long as we know how to follow God? What if we had a choice in education-one that instructs in the three R's, but tries to pull children away from God, or one that is taught by a spiritual, but uneducated mother who is entitled to the inspiration that God gives for her children, so that they may grow to serve them wherever God places them? Which should we choose? But wait, what if everyone else is choosing a different path? Should we still be working to raise a generation to God, when everyone else is raising a generation for pieces of paper that have man's mark of approval? Surely, the specialists are the ones to trust our children too, no?

"Do not let your children out to specialists... but teach them by your own precept and example, by your own fireside. Be a specialist yourself in the truth." (Gospel Doctrine, p. 302)

"Any man who will question the divinity of the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ, or will deny the so-called miracles of the scriptures is unfit to be a teacher of Latter-day Saint children." (Improvement Era Vol. 21, p. 104)

"And also trust no one to be your teacher nor your minister, except he be a man of God, walking in his ways and keeping his commandments." Mosiah 23:14

Does your children's teacher believe in God? What about the textbook writers, who are also the teachers? What about those who set the curriculum?

But wait, I could never home school. I am not a leader and couldn't run a Mom's school. Run a co-op school, no, that would be too hard for me. Geuss what, it is too hard for everyone of us. We don't do it alone. You see, when God has a work that needs done He helps those in that work. Since God is always faithful, if He calls you to the work and you remain faithful to Him then He will qualify you. You see, God can do all things. God is our hero. He is who we want to follow, who we want to study and who we want to emulate. If your heartstrings are beginning to tug in the way of keeping your children with you, pray and ask if it is His call for you. If it is and you are faithful to Him, you will begin to see many small miracles and proof of God's faithfulness, and it is awesome.

"I can say that it is good and wise and judicious in parents to instruct their children in the way. If they wish the word of the Lord upon the subject, I will give it to you and you may, any of you, write it down if you please. It is the will of the Lord our God that we teach our children the way of righteousness from the Holy Scriptures and there is no better method than for mothers to teach them at home, and in the Sunday Schools." (The Teachings of President Brigham Young, Vol. 3)

"I am not what the world calls a learned man; neither is President Young. We never went to any college except the one sustained by the Latter-day Saints, and we have been in that from the beginning. Let me tell you, gentlemen and ladies, if we had been brought up in palaces, and been sent to school all the days of our lives to get all the education of the world, and were practical men only in these things, would we be of any advantage to this people? A man may pass through a course of education designed to fit him for a doctor, a minister, or a lawyer, and it is often the case that he comes out an ignoramus, or worse than useless member of society. When the flowers begin to bloom on the mountain sides, the ladies try to imitate them with artificial ones. Which would you rather possess in education--the real flower, or the artificial one? Would you not rather have true education, direct from heaven, than the artificial one of the world? The one educates the head and the heart, the other the head alone." (Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses, 3:106)