Every minute of every day; week, month and year a young person is being born into this world. I’ve yet to learn the history of any older person being born for the first time. When we all come into this world; every one of us must rely on those who are elder than we are to take care of us; to teach us and to provide for us. However, today when we look around our young people are taking care of themselves (for lack of a better word). They don’t have positive role models infiltrating their young lives within the home; community and neighborhood. We have left our young people up to their own devices and then we stand back and shake our heads and say shame.
Well I say; NO! The shame is on us; and it has to begin to stop with us who are in the Church. For those of us who have young children in the home or who are actively involved with youth; it’s a tough responsibility but I’m certain that in our heart we have room enough to give more love to those young people who are in desperate need of love. If we see that our child’s buddies are beginning to go astray pull them gently back in; let me tell you every human recognizes true love when they SEE it not when we say it. Involve as many of the neighborhood kids as we know we are equipped to handle in our family activities; do sleep overs and have them to attend worship service with the family. We must do all we can to keep our kids from being idle and falling into drugs and gangs.
And another thing that gets me; we work, pay the bills and everything is in our name and not in the name of our kids. So what privacy does that child deserve? Now, we don’t have to be like the correctional officers in the prison systems; however, an open line of communication will always reveal much if we remain watchful and listen. We need to go back to the old ways of parenting; my grandmother would listen in on my conversations without my knowing she was listening or my parents would come up to the school and just stand in the hall afar off and observe my behavior. Another thing my grandmother would do is that she would go through my things while I was not in the house. I in turned did the same when I raised my children. Now mind you I came up during a time when privacy was not a thought that would come out of a kids face until we were eighteen; then it was expected. Most of us turned out better because of this upbringing than not; when we show love by provision of needs and teaching what is right; being an encouragement; listening to them when they speak to us or around us these make a vast difference in the lives of people for the better.
Now when we leave our young people to themselves; they will find someone older than they who will teach them and everything that they learn may be that of destruction. All because no one has prepared us to be vigilant and sober and in turn we are not able to teach our young ones to be vigilant and sober. It’s not so difficult to misunderstand as to why we are missing it from clear scripture because we are missing it with what’s going on right around us in our daily. How can we be alert about when it’s actually the enemy and not us if we don’t recognize the enemy; ourselves or JESUS? Because of our lack of self-control we don’t recognize a true lion and his massive roar and proud walk. Rather we look at the cowardly lion from the Wizard of Oz and think that’s the real deal. I’ve taken the privilege of delving into the meaning of words used in 1 Peter 5:8; you may want to read the scripture again knowing the meaning behind the words and watch the scripture come to life.
Sober – restrained; self-controlled
Vigilant – alert, watchful
Like – bearing resemblance
Devour – eat; swallow