We are experiencing an unprecedented freedom and lack of accountability in our culture for speaking falsely and repeating it as truth. Our children are especially vulnerable to falling for a false narrative that ultimately shapes them for skewed thinking. As a parent, am I checked in? I am not referring to our vacation destination, but rather “checked into” our child’s processing of our contemporary times and its many hot button issues.
We can trust very little of what we are hearing or being told. It is very unfortunate that speaking and then repeating false information is at an epidemic level. Make note that our children’s minds are being shaped by the information that enters by way of their eyes and ears. It is our responsibility to help them sort through what is right or true and toss out that which is not. Parents in our culture may be the only trustworthy source. This cultivates children into being critical thinkers. Our goal is not to make them disrespectful, but discerning.
They are processing the same newsworthy information that we are processing; i.e., elections, politics, Covid, etc. We must “listen” to them and help correct that which they have received that is incorrect. Psalm 26:4 (NLT): “I do not spend time with liars or go along with hypocrites.” It is important that we engage them in our thoughts and conversation. Our cultural voices have lost their reverence and fear for God, and thus integrity is at an all-time low.
Have you listened to your child this week? Did you give them a chance to share what they were told in school or exposed to through technology? They do process in some form or another everything that enters their intellect and thoughts. When they repeat information that is false as though it is fact, because that is how it was presented to them, we must with patience set the record straight. We must “check in” to their thinking and thought processes and let them know we are there and that we are listening.
“You won’t spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God. You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy—their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols. Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do. So they slander you. But remember that they will have to face God, who will judge everyone, both the living and the dead.”
1 Peter 4:2-5 (NLT)
Pray and ask the Lord to direct “your” thinking, so that you in turn may help direct your children. Paul gives us some insight to the seriousness of what is taking place in 1 Timothy 4:1-2 (NLT): “Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead.”
