Whoever Wants Your Kids Will Get Them

Our world is out to get our kids.

Look at the music. The movies. The apps. The phones. The trends. The clothing. The video games. Our world is working tirelessly at trying to get our kids’ attention. Our world is screaming for our kids and if their voice is louder than ours, whoever wants our kids, will get them.

This has become more and more evident to me over the past few years, as we not only raise our own child, but as we walk with kids in youth ministry. What it comes down to is this:

Whoever influences your kids the most, will have the most influence over them.

Think about the kids in your life. Who or what is influencing them? Is it their friends? Styles and trends? The latest iPhone app? The lure and need for bigger and better? A certain ideology? Whatever is influencing your child the most, will most likely be the thing they focus on the most, changing them, to “get” them.

But what if WE worked unceasingly, to ensure our kids are influenced by first of all, the Bible? Christian principles? God-honoring styles? Selfless actions and not self-focused apps? Biblical character and not conforming? Real Christian relationships and friendships and not just virtual besties?

Our world WANTS our kids. And whoever wants them the most, will get them. Whoever influences them the most, will get them. So, who is influencing your child? What do you allow into your home, on your phones, and into your conversations around the dinner table or in the car? What is the focus?

IT MATTERS. We can do our best to be our kid’s greatest influence, but if we don’t speak louder than what’s around them, their roots will be sewn into the world’s ground, not the foundation of Scripture. Someday I will have to give an account for how I raised our daughter. It’s a high calling! But when God’s perfect design is violated, bad things happen. Sin. And sin has consequences. It’s a slippery slope, but it will so be worth it! Because these are the principles they will take into their families, and their families, and that’s where a legacy starts.

Every decision matters. Let’s help our kids understand that too. Because where our treasure is, there our heart will be also (Matthew 6:21). A daily self-check for me too!