October 27, 2009

Number 43

VIEWPOINT

Many parents wish their teens lived in a Leave It to Beaver world, but most families seem closer to Survivor.  There is good news, though.   According to Stephen Wallace, when it comes to helping teens make wise choices about drugs, alcohol and sexual activity, parents have much more influence than they think.  Wallace is the author of Reality Gap:  Alcohol, Drugs and Sex – What Parents Don’t Know and Teens Aren’t Telling.  “Kids are more likely to make good choices if you establish expectations and enforce consequences,” he says.

Here are some suggestions to help young people make good decisions:

Start talking about tough topics in elementary school.  The average age for kids to start drinking is 13.  Parents who wait until high school are less likely to gain traction.

Emphasize casual conversations.  Weaving sensitive subjects into “table talk” at a meal or during a car ride will usually find teens are more receptive.  It’s more effective than an official “big talk.”

Describe adolescent behavior accurately.  A survey conducted by SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) shows that about 32 percent of 7^th to 12^th grade students have used illegal drugs.  Most young people, however, tend to believe the percentage is much higher.  Their “everybody is doing it” mentality typically kicks into high gear.

Give them help.  Teens can be armed with strategies.  “Provide them with a plan or things to say to extricate themselves from unhealthy situations,” Wallace suggests. “The more they practice responses, the more likely they’ll make a good decision at crunch time.”

I look forward to seeing you Sunday with a Bible, a smile and a positive word! RA

Praying “Forgive Us Our Sins”

Praying for forgiveness is a vivid reminder that God frees us from debilitating guilt and forgets our past.  No sin is written with indelible ink.  (Albert Haase, Living the Lord's Prayer)

Muckraking is not gospel work.  Witch-hunting is not gospel work.  Shaming the outcast is not gospel work.  Forgiving sin is gospel work. (Eugene H. Peterson, Tell It Slant)

He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself, for every man has need to be forgiven. (Edward Herbert, The Life of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury)

Failure to forgive . . . wasn't a matter of failing to live up to a new bit of moral teaching.  It was cutting off the branch you were sitting on.  The only reason for being Kingdom-people, for being Jesus' people, was that the forgiveness of sins was happening; so if you didn't live forgiveness, you were denying the very basis of your own new existence.  (N. T. Wright, The Lord and His Prayer)

Jesus is not saying that God's forgiveness is conditional upon our forgiving others.  In the first place, forgiveness that's conditional isn't really forgiveness at all . . .  and in the second place, our unforgivingness is among those things . . . that we need to have God forgive us most.  What Jesus apparently is saying is that the pride that keeps us from forgiving is the same pride that keeps us from accepting forgiveness, and will God please help us do something about it. (Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking)

Einstein's E=MC2 is an extraordinary concept.  So radical: matter and energy are two phases of the same sort of general stuff.  There's only one other idea that radical:  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  (Kurt Vonnegut, in Will the Circle Be Unbroken?)

Forgiveness has two necessary elements.  The first is that we give up the notion of revenge (“turn the other cheek”), and the second is that we come to desire the well-being of our injurer (“pray for those who persecute you”).  (Roberta C. Bondi, A Place to Pray: Reflections on the Lord's Prayer)

To pray for forgiveness without repenting from the wrong will be mere babble.  To repent without righting the wrong is hypocritical. (Michael H. Crosby, The Prayer That Jesus Taught Us)

– Compiled by Richard A. Kauffman