“We have the responsibility to stand for the truth, for what is right,” Governor DeSantis said, adding that taxpayer dollars would not “be used to teach our kids to hate our country or to hate each other.” He added: “We also have to protect our people and our kids from some very pernicious ideologies that are trying to be forced upon them all across the country.”

You may wonder, “What is Woke and how does it affect our children?” Merriam-Webster defines as “chiefly US slang”, the dictionary defines the word as: “Aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” You will notice, if you read the articles, that in order to be “woke,” you must believe two things:

1. That gender is a social construct
2. That being white is bad

It’s ironic, because these are both things you are born with, but the woke crowd would tell you that one is fluid and the other is just wrong.

Parent’s Responsibility in a Woke Culture:

Children are gifts that are under parent’s authority for eighteen years. As they grow into maturity, parents release them back to God. The Bible gives an example to follow: 1 Samuel 1:27-28, states “I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” God is requiring the same of parents today. When they become adults, your relationship has changed. They now answer to God and their future success; therefore, parents are to train and lay a foundation that will sustain them during future life’s challenges.

Three Keys to Successful Training:

1. 1. Keep your child’s heart: Your child is trusting you to guard and nourish his/her heart. The key is to build a meaningful relationship by spending time and talking about their day. You are the most important person in their life, the primary educator, the spiritual guide, and influence. Quality time invests meaning into their life and builds healthy relationship. Treat each child as an individual. Your children have different temperaments, giftings and personalities. Study their uniqueness and honor how God has created them.
   2. Train your child’s heart: Training a heart simply means to instill morals, values and character traits. In other words, impart a moral code of right and wrong. Talk about racism in America. What are the results? What has resulted in shame, injustice, and, at some points in history, terrible violence. What does God think about this? We are all created by God in his own image, male and female,” Genesis 1:27. God loves everyone the same. “For God shows no partiality,” Romans 2:11. Train a child’s conscience to do the right thing even when no one is watching. Second, help them to understand that, while laws and legislation guard the principle of equal rights for all Americans legally, no law can change the heart. Someone who is filled with prejudice and racial hatred will not suddenly be filled with love simply because a new law is passed. Only when we are saved can we live out the mandate “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” Mark 12:31. Jesus addressed racial divides, among other things, “in the parable of the good Samaritan,” Luke 10:25–37.
   3. Guard your child’s heart: Be their protector. Have them share with you who speaks into their life, the books they read, and what they are watching. Solomon said, “Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life,” Proverbs 4:23. A heart is shaped by what they think about all day long. Parents can help them to make wise choices. A Christian must realize that real racial reconciliation in the Church occurs when we prioritize our identity in Christ over our belonging to a racial category or ethnicity. Members of the body of Christ should feel more at home in their Christian family than even in their own ethnicity: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” Galatians 3:28.

   As Christian parents, we should be “woke” to the love of God for our family in Christ: “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them”, 1 John 2:11. We should be “woke” to the light of the gospel, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers,” 2 Corinthians 4:4. We should be “woke” to the fact of temptation in the world, “Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation. The spirit is willing but he flesh is weak,” Matthew 26:41. “We are reconciled with God and united to Christ”, 2 Corinthians 5:18. God is allowing us to be truly reconciled with one another. Real change and real answers to the problems of racism, injustice, other societal evils are found in God’s Word and in the peace He gives to all who love and seek Him first, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all things will be added to you,” Matthew 6:33.