As parents, we have lot’s of questions concerning what we should allow our children to do and what is not a good use of time.  When we couple this thought with being a Christian we discover that we want to make sure our kids are doing what God wants them to do…or at least we say we do.

Today’s teenager has so much on their plate.  While it’s true our data plan for our cell phones can be measured in Gig’s, the data that hits our students can be measure in terabytes.   Seriously, when you consider a full day of school, homework, social interaction, down time/entertainment and Church, at the end of the day these students can be fried.  In fact, they are.

I have seen some interesting things over the past few years with respect to students.  It seems that as a culture we expect/demand that our students be the best at everything.  While this is a great goal, it doesn’t address the question of whether God’s best aligns with our best.  Think about it, how many times have we planned out things only to find that what we though was right was not what God had in mind?  The same holds true for our children.  I see so many students who look like zombies…going to bed late, sacrificing their sanity on the alter of achievement.  Now I am not against doing your best, or being the best, I am simply asking us to stop and think, are we pushing our kids towards something, or letting God draw them to where He wants them?

It’s important to strike a balance.  It’s so easy to get caught up in a shop shop shop Christmas season mentality.  Likewise it’s easy for us to get caught up in a culture where our kids have to be the best (by our standards) and not so much by God’s.  So how do we strike a balance?  I suggest we find a healthy balance between school/academics, athletics, and spiritual growth.  If you just focus on one you will be out of balance.  We need lives where we are challenged academically and physically.  Likewise, we need to grow our kids spiritually so that they can make appropriate decisions later on in life.