How to Know Where to Hang Your Hat
by Christopher Hendrix
How do you decide where to live? Many in our church have to choose the answers to this question every 3 years or so. Various factors influence the decision, including location to work, ease of access to shopping, parks, crime, and the balance between land and city. This question becomes even more important when children are factored into the scenario. A recent article by The Washington Post was published to help you with this conundrum. They ranked every county in the US to determine which is the best place to raise children. Four criteria determined the best counties to raise kids in: affordability, safety, education, and policy. The results? Shocking.
The Worldview of the World’s View
When all four criteria are equally balanced, the top counties to live in center around the northeast coast. The best states to live in are primarily those with a blue state status. The worst state to live in is Louisiana, with Montana and Oklahoma not far behind. Many of the red states have only a few counties that are ranked highly. What drove these rankings? While the cost of living and crime statistics factored in, these were offset by specific policies related to “personal liberties” within the state and county. What were these policies? Abortion access and LGBTQ rights. That’s right. According to this article, raising children where they can be killed in the womb or their bodies mutilated because of an agenda is the best place for them to grow.
So then, the states that have driven towards murdering children and destroying their bodies rank higher on this list. In fact, the writer suggests that the best places to raise children are in the Northeast. When she compares the stats she ran to actual reality, most young families live in Texas, Idaho, and Utah. She concludes the article by stating that its purpose is to help parents find locations to make the child-rearing journey more enjoyable.
The Reality of What Families Want
First, here is a good picture of how many on the left think. They’re disconnected from reality. The reason most young families live in Texas, Idaho, and Utah versus what she believes to be the better area is because of policies that protect children, encourage economic growth, and refuse to cave to the corruption of our children through the LGBTQ agenda. Her criteria begins flawed in not recognizing what most families want.
Second, the reason more families live counter to what she thinks is that people are having families in these areas. More families exist in these areas because they’re not killing the children God gives to them. They’re not giving their children over to the destruction of the sexually immoral.
Third, thinking parents need access to abortion while trying to raise kids is a contradiction. Abortion is the murder of the child. That’s not raising a child, that’s razing the baby.
Ultimately, the key to understanding the illogical reasoning presented in this article lies in the stark contrast between the secular worldview and the Christian worldview. By what standard of truth does the author hold to? It’s a standard within culture created by man. It’s a wicked standard that results in destruction. The stench of death surrounds this worldview, which is why people are driven from these counties that promote it.
The Word of God
For the Christian, our standard is the Word of God. The Scriptures reveal the truth about who a person is. Hebrews 4:12 leads us to seeing and knowing that the Word is living and active. The Word of God is alive and works in our hearts. It brings us to salvation. It sanctifies us. It leads us to living in truth and holiness. It guides us in choosing where we will raise our children.
The Word of God is also a person. This person, Jesus Christ, truly gives joy. True happiness comes from raising children in Christ. The Christian looks to those policies that the world thinks help raise children better, and we scoff at them. They are foolish and wicked before the holy God. We don’t see places that promote these policies as safe havens, but as battlefields. These are mission fields waiting for the harvest to be reaped. These are places that desperately need the Gospel. For some, God will call to penetrate and stand firm in the midst of depravity. For others, God will call to flee for the sake of their family. Either way, the Christian is not at peace in these places that openly support the flow of blood from legal places.
Christians determine where to live not from the world’s standard, but from a Christian worldview. This will look different for each, but the decisions are made based on the truths found in scripture, not an article that aims to try to sell murder and mutilation as the Garden of Eden. Christians first consider what the Lord guides them towards and how to prepare to move forward, whether by exiting or entering these locations. The Christian is guided by the Word on where to hang his hat.