As I watch my teen-age daughters go through life and become the adults they will one day be, I can’t help but think that there are lessons that I wish I could have learned back when I was a teen-ager. Sure I have tried to teach these lessons, just as I’m sure my parents tried to teach me. But you don’t listen. You have to learn for yourself through the trials and challenges of life. My kids don’t believe me when I tell them things...they think I am old fashioned or just saying things a mom should say in order to get them to behave in a certain way. But if I could have ‘gotten’ certain things way back then, I have to wonder if my life would have unfolded differently. I will write about more of these things in future blogs, but here are some that are on my heart right now.
“If God is the main thing, everything else will fall into place.”
God was part of my life when I was growing up, but I didn’t have a personal relationship with him until I was an adult. Church/Christianity was just one of the activities in my life amongst things like marching band and yearbook staff. I can’t help but think how things would have been different if my life was defined by God. If what my God thought of my everyday choices mattered more than what my friends thought. If I loved Him more than some kid I had a crush on. If getting spiritual things right was more important than grades or winning. If I was more concerned with telling people about Jesus than worrying that they thought I was cool. Am I getting all these things correctly now? No, but I am trying to live that way and I think I am improving.
“Don’t worry so much about stuff that doesn’t really matter.”
Things seem so big and daunting when you are in the middle of them, but in the big scheme of life, they aren’t. Think of things that you lost sleep worrying about, cried tears over, thought your world was going to fall apart. They don’t matter any more, do they? In fact they probably didn’t really matter a month later. Whether it was about a relationship, a big test, how you look, whatever.....it goes back to my first point...if God is the main thing, everything else will fall into place. And worry is nothing more than not trusting God. Am I getting this one right now? Nope. Still worry about things. But I think my perspective is different. I try to pray about those things rather than worry and fret. I also try to keep everything in it’s place. I think I have more wisdom about what are big things and what are little insignificant things. Worry is still worry and still wrong...but again, I am getting better.
“Sin is sin and there are consequences.”
Young people in their teens and twenties have a messed up view of their mortality. They honestly don’t think anything really bad can happen to them. Kids think dabbling in things is not dangerous. “That won’t happen to ME.” “There are plenty of people doing worse things.” But sin ALWAYS has consequences in God’s economy. Maybe you won’t die, maybe there won’t be serious physical consequences, but there will be baggage. The standard needs to stop being “just not as bad as so-and-so.” The standard is Jesus! You are not going to reach perfection, but that should be Who you imitate and strive for. I promise you that your friends will have more respect for your “no” than if you go along with whatever it is. They may not say that, and your circle of friends might shrink a little, but I don’t think you will ever regret making a right choice.
My list could go on and on....and I will revisit this in another blog.....
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