By Ma Lin, China
In China, the viewpoint “The worth of other pursuits is small, the study of books excels them all,” which has been passed down from ancient times to the present and is corroding everyone’s heart like drug addiction and influencing the thinking and life of generation after generation of people. Especially for many families nowadays, there is only one child in a family, so parents put the education of their children before anything else. Whether rich people or poor regular folks, they all have the same long-cherished ambition to make their children become the cream of the crop. They all hope their children can go to university, take part in the entrance exams for postgraduate schools, study for the master’s degree, study for doctorate, and so on. Because they believe: Knowledge can change a person’s fate. As long as one has a high degree, then he can not only get a steady job, earn a good salary, and enjoy high status and great wealth, but also be successful, honor his ancestors, and obtain others’ high regard and admiration. This is the only way his life would not be in vain. To fulfill this ambition and change their children’s fate, from the day of their children’s birth, parents begin to try painstakingly and rack their brains to bustle back and forth for the prospects of their children, and they worry about gains and losses for this. Recently, I watched a television show which interpreted this viewpoint. The plot tells how the three families from different classes educate their children, which reflects a series of the state of society and is thought-provoking. The story roughly goes like this:
In one of the three families, there is a boy whose birth mother has died, and his father does business and belongs to well-to-do classes. The boy is naughty and has some friction and misunderstanding with his father; in the other two families, there are two girls. One girl’s parents are white collars with moderate income. Her mother is in the management hierarchy of a big company and her father is a professional ophthalmologist. This girl is bright and independent, and also is doing well in her studies; the other girl’s family belongs to wage-earning class with average income. Her mother is an ordinary doctor of a hospital and her father is a taxi driver. She is a clever girl and has an excellent academic record. The parents in the three families demand and expect much of their children, and so in order to send their own children to a good high school, they pay a painstaking price. However, the children have their own hobbies and thoughts and cannot be always in step with their parents. Consequently, there are a series of frictions and ruffles between the parents and their children. Afterward, the parents in the two families with better economic conditions choose to send their children abroad for school so as to make their children become knowledgeable and raise their children’s social status. Meantime, in the other girl’s family with lower income, the mother, unwilling to fall behind, does everything for the sake of sending her daughter abroad. Finally, she gives her only daughter to her rich childless sister abroad for adoption.
After watching this show, I could not help feeling overwhelmed with emotion: Parents are always full of love and good intentions! Parents devote all their efforts to their children, and they eagerly hope that their children can have a promising future. What the show reflects is exactly the truest side of modern society and also the universal problem: Well-off families invest millions in sending their children to a top university or abroad for advanced studies in order for their children to have a brilliant future; parents with low incomes also desire to let their children acquire knowledge and take a high degree, even if they surrender their last resources or endure the pain of giving up what they love. Because they think only in this way can their children be successful. The hopes that parents place on their children are similar and the steps which parents take to nurture their children are basically the same. These wishes seem beautiful and impeccable, but have we ever considered: Is this viewpoint of pursuit really correct? Can knowledge really change our children’s fate? Can our children really be happy after becoming an outstanding person?
God’s words say: “Regarding the treatment of children: All parents hope their children will receive a higher education, and, one day, will make a name for themselves and have a role to play in society, with a steady income and influence. This alone would honor their ancestors. This concept is common to everyone. ‘May my son be a dragon, and my daughter a phoenix,’ as the saying goes. Is this concept correct? Everyone wants their children to attend a prestigious university, followed by postgraduate studies. They believe that once they have gotten their degrees, their children will make names for themselves, for all people, in their hearts, worship knowledge. ‘The worth of other pursuits is small, the study of books excels them all,’ they believe. Moreover, today’s society is extremely competitive. Without a degree, one might not eat—this is how all people think, and the view they hold—as if a degree alone could decide one’s future and livelihood. This is why every person makes higher education and acceptance into an institute of higher learning the first priority in their demands of their children. … What is man’s point of view? It is that, without knowledge and education, a person has no leg to stand on in this society and this world, and is a lesser person, a pauper. In your eyes, whoever lacks knowledge, whoever is uncultured, or largely uneducated, is someone you look down on, and scorn, and treat as insignificant. Is this not so? Your point of view and premise are themselves incorrect.”
These words are worthy of our deep reflection and contemplation. In fact, there is nothing wrong with learning knowledge in itself and it can widen children’s sight, enlarge their mind, and enrich their thinking. But when we learn knowledge, various satanic thoughts and views are implanted in us, such as “Knowledge can change your fate,” “To be a scholar is to be at the top of society,” “Through studying you will gain success, and fortune will follow,” “rising above others,” and “One should bring honor to his ancestors.” Therefore, we regard knowledge as more important than anything else, and think that only the possession of a high degree can bring us a good future. Just as what the parents in that TV show do. They spare no expense of monetary resources to send their children abroad for further studies, and some even have their only daughter adopted by their sister in order not to let their daughter become a poor person or be looked down upon by others. Although the parents in that show finally send their children abroad, they themselves live with a lot of pain, and their children who are overburdened feel depressed and even become antagonistic toward them. As a result, not only do their family relationships become tense and irreconcilable, but there is an unbridgeable gulf between the two generations.
Let us think about this question: Can knowledge really make man successful and honor his ancestors? Can knowledge ultimately change the direction of children’s lives? From the fact we’ve seen, we can reach a conclusion. Many parents try their best to let their children be well educated, but their children end up failing the exam and have to search for another way to live a better life; many parents expect their children to be engaged in politics and win fame and fortune, but the result is that their children are even unable to find a job for a living; many wealthy families send their children to a top university or an exclusive school to learn knowledge. Unexpectedly, after they spend hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars, they fail to change their children’s fate, but instead their children’s disposition becomes arrogant, unbridled and self-righteous. When their children walk a path of no return, it will be too late for them to regret. All of the results that go against our expectations convey the same message to us: The viewpoint “The worth of other pursuits is small, the study of books excels them all” is wrong. Knowledge cannot decide our fate, let alone change our children’s fate.
Then why do the majority of parents adore knowledge and believe only knowledge can change their children’s fate? As a matter of fact, there is a foundational problem behind this view. God’s words say: “Satan uses fame and gain to control man’s thoughts, until all people can think of is fame and gain. They struggle for fame and gain, suffer hardships for fame and gain, endure humiliation for fame and gain, sacrifice everything they have for fame and gain, and they will make any judgment or decision for the sake of fame and gain. In this way, Satan binds people with invisible shackles, and they have neither the strength nor the courage to throw them off. They unknowingly bear these shackles and trudge ever onward with great difficulty. For the sake of this fame and gain, mankind shuns God and betrays Him and becomes increasingly wicked. In this way, therefore, one generation after another is destroyed in the midst of Satan’s fame and gain.”
God’s words reveal the root and mystery of this phenomenon. That is, Satan uses fame and gain to deceive, bind, and control people’s hearts. When we learn things to gain knowledge, Satan makes us treat fame and gain as capital and value for living and entices us into searching for fame and gain at any cost. This is why many parents plan for their children’s study and future since their birth. When hearing other people’s children get excellent grades or go to a prestigious school, some parents will feel envious in their hearts and want to compete furiously. For this reason, they even deprive their children of innocence, freedom, and dreams by enrolling their children in various study classes and making their children do as they command in order to satisfy their own desire for fame and gain. When their efforts were repaid with their children’s excellent grades, good job and prominent standing, they feel complacent and proud; when their children’s grades are poor, they are exasperated, want their children to live up to their expectations, and even hit their children with sticks, which worse still, may cause an irreversible tragedy. … In this way, for fame and gain, we are willing to become enslaved by Satan and think that it is worth all the sufferings. Unknowingly, we bear up a heavy fetter so that our hearts and bodies live in incomparable agony. The pursuit of fame and gain puts us ever further away from God and makes us and our children become the objects to be fooled and harmed by Satan. In the end, we cannot change our fate, but rather live in endless darkness and suffering and are unable to break free.
Actually, as for the question of how we should treat our children’s fate, God’s words have given us the answer: “People’s plans and fantasies are perfect; do they not know that the number of children they have, their children’s appearance, abilities, and so forth, are not for them to decide, that not a bit of their children’s fates is in their hands? Humans are not the masters of their own fate, yet they hope to change the fates of the younger generation; they are powerless to escape their own fates, yet they try to control those of their sons and daughters. Are they not overestimating themselves? Is this not human foolishness and ignorance?” “No matter how great one’s abilities, one cannot influence—much less orchestrate, arrange, control, or change—the fates of others. Only God Himself, the unique, dictates all things for man, for only He possesses the unique authority that holds sovereignty over human fate, and so only the Creator is man’s unique Master.” God’s words say so clearly. People’s fate is held in the Creator’s hands. No one can dictate his own fate or control others’, nor can the higher education and degrees as well as all powers from the outside world change man’s fate. In fact, if parents carefully recollect their own lives, they will discover the mysteries within. That is what it means to say that people over 50 understand the will of heaven. Unfortunately, many people don’t realize this until they struggle for over half their lives. Therefore, if we want to live a free and liberated life and wish our children to have a bright future, then we must come before the Creator, understand the truth, and develop correct outlooks on life. We must guide and educate our children in accordance with God’s words instead of Satan’s viewpoints “Knowledge can change your fate.” Only in this way can we bring our children into the right path of life. God created us, so only God can change our children’s fate. I have faith that God’s plans and arrangements for our children’s future are more meticulous than ours. When we do not intentionally control our children’s fate but entrust it to God’s hands, we will see what God arranges for everyone is for the best.
