CHOICES

What's more important, the career choice and financial future of your high school/ college student or his/ her spiritual force of character?

You probably can guess where I'm landing on this. Having put three little people into adult hood and with no more little ones of our own to shadow, we've done more than our share of looking around at the cultural landscape where parents are assisting their older teens and college students to make the transition from youth to adulthood.

And what we see concerns us; parents who seem fixated on seeing their kids choose the "right career", the best job, and the perfect college, but are failing to prepare the character of their kids for the onslaught of pressure and devilish schemes that will be brought to bear upon them and nursed into habits by their own flesh.

Three-hundred years ago Jonathan Edwards seized upon his own burden as he saw what lay before his own kids and those within his congregation, most of whom were dealing with their own challenges of a changing economy, demographics, and the dynamics of youth in the 18th century New England Colonies. His advice to them as youth and their parents was direct and personal and is part of a bigger and better strategy:

• Commit your kids to the pursuit of holiness in life and thought
• Commit your kids to regular attendance and service in the local church. Stop pleading and start planning.
• Give attention to the preparation of their character over their financial future and career. Talk more about calling, and only then, career.
• Model all of these behaviors with your spouse

If you can do this, you'll have kids prepared to take their own place in the church, their own homes, and in the culture at large.
And believe me, the culture is waiting for character– it just seems that it's in short supply.
MJC