Theology, worldview and the Parental "Don'ts"

When my son turned 5 years old, our family celebrated in a huge way. We never thought Micah would make it to five because he was fearless and Dave and I couldn’t anticipate his next “challenge.”

When Micah crawled into the furnace and blew out the pilot light, we got a better lock on the furnace room door and added “Don’t play in or around a furnace” to the never ending litany of “don’ts.” When he put a fork in the microwave, causing phenomenal electrical lightening in our kitchen and an early death to the small appliance, we bought a new one, kept it unplugged when not in use and added “Don’t touch the microwave.” When he pushed out the screen in his bedroom window and escaped into the night only to show up at our back door after falling the 4 feet into the grass, walking around the house, climbing over the driveway gate put there to keep him in the yard, and knocking at the back door, we screwed in the window screen, instituted almost hourly bed checks, and added “DO NOT climb out your bedroom window” and “You may climb over the gate to get back into the yard BUT don’t climb over the gate to get out of the yard.” Not really. We did screw in his screens, admitted defeat as care givers and gave our son into the hands of God.

Parenting is about helping our children learn to make good decisions. Anticipating the next area of “danger” and heading it off at the pass. But today’s world is overwhelming. Technology and science are leap-frogging us into uncharted territories. Our kids are faced with situations that we didn’t, couldn’t and can’t anticipate.

Selling your eggs to the highest bidder may seem like a good idea to some – but as stated in other posts on this site – there are good reasons against from a wide variety of standpoints.

It isn’t enough to tell our kids what is right from wrong – there comes a time when they aren’t listening to us or we aren’t around to talk to them. We need to give them a firm foundation of theology – of knowing who God is. We need to teach them to think, not just what to think but HOW to think. We need to help them develop a God-centered worldview.

So before we can help them we need to do a reality check. . . you have a worldview whether or not you’ve intentionally adopted it – you are living it. Your actions speak a lot louder than your words. So, what is your worldview as determined by your interactions with our culture? Do you need a compass adjustment before you talk to your kids about the tough choices they’re facing?

Nancy Pearcy – Total Truth – the right place to start. . .