What You Need to Know Before Leaving Home

The next few sections of this manual should take no more than a couple of hours to read, yet it will provide a lifetime of opportunity to learn and ultimately perfect. While God will never expect you to reach that “perfect” threshold, you can bet He will be expecting you to shoot for it with all of your heart.
While we’re on the topic of your heart, keep your eyes and ears peeled whenever you come across a bible passage that talks about the heart. Your Mom and I believe those verses are topped off with extra doses of insight and wisdom.
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
1 Samuel 16:7



This scripture is about the selection of a new king to replace Saul. At this point in the story, the Prophet Samuel has been tasked by God to anoint the next King of Israel and he’s been told it will be one of Jesse’s eight sons. As it turns out, all seven older brothers are passed over for the youngster David. In the context of verse 7 above, it is a safe assumption that at least one, if not all seven older brothers “looked the part” of King more so than David. But God chose David because of his heart. There’s nothing wrong with taking good care of your outward appearance. In fact, your Mom and I believe that is one way you honor God, by properly taking care of the body he gave you. But the deeper lesson to be learned from this passage is this: God sees your heart - the “real” you. David’s heart was not predisposed to taking on life based on his feelings, but rather on trusting God and relying on His word. That’s what God saw when He looked upon David’s heart. With that in mind, you can’t hide from God. You may be able to pull one over on your parents, your siblings, your teachers, coaches and friends, but you’ll never trick God. He sees “inside” you, the real you, and what motivates you. The real you ultimately comes down to the values in your heart and how you work to employ those values in your life day to day.
1 The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD. 2 All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, but the LORD weighs the motives.
Proverbs 16:1-2



So there is no misunderstanding with respect to your heart, please know your Mom and I want to be clear that you are not to be lured into making decisions emotionally with your heart. You were not created to go through life based upon how you feel about everything. This is a popular way of thinking today and it is not only wrong, but hostile to God’s plan for you. If you make decisions simply from the feelings in your heart, you will end up with a regular case of heartburn and/or heartache.
So why did Mom and Dad create a value system that relies on the concept of the HEART? That’s a great question and we touched on the answer a little bit in the paragraph before last. Your heart is representative of your interior life – your thoughts and values. If one can train his or her interior life towards those things that are noble and good, presumably that would result in a heart that is aimed at doing what is noble and good too. Your noble and good thoughts and values should result in noble and good actions or behavior. Therefore, your Mom and I want to train your heart towards the noble and good.
Before we do, here’s a disclaimer about language and some much-needed clarity. In the chapters that follow, your Mom and I will be laying out values that we expect you to memorize. Many of the words we are introducing to the family are ones you have heard before. In fact, you probably even equate all of them with a positive image – words like respect, character, courage and integrity. The reason you perceive these values to be positive is that they are normally employed in a way that exalts the person being described when they used. An important reason your Mom and I are first defining each of these values is that as a society, we have somewhat lost the handles on what the words truly mean. If I asked you to define character could you do it? Courage? Integrity? When I was your age I certainly couldn’t. How could I fully integrate these values into my own life if couldn’t even accurately describe what they were? How can anyone? Sadly, I would bet about half of all Americans would struggle to do it as well. We’ve lost this noble or moral vocabulary because one generation of Americans failed to adequately train the subsequent generation. How can we expect people to live out these values if they can’t even articulate their meaning? Yes, we have a notion that these values will lead to a more noble and good life, but how do we get there, if we can’t correctly appreciate them for their essential worth or benefit to our lives?
So with that in mind, your Mom and I are training you up to know these values and hide them in your heart (i.e. memorize them). We want to first teach you the definition. Second, we want to link them to a passage of scripture to remind you that they are rooted in Biblical wisdom. Finally, we hope to suggest a simple, one-line strategy for you to consider for each value in terms of practical application. Let’s get started.