If knowledge is power...

Why is it that kids (I'm not even talking teenagers) think their friends or cousins know more about everything than I do? I mean, I'm a pseudo-successful adult. I pay my bills, do my job. I read. I know things. But when I talk, I get this glassy-eyed stare that tortured POW's must use to avoid giving information. Or I get random information that has nothing to do with the conversation. (i.e. In a recent conversation about housebreaking the dog, I was informed about the authors of a dog training book the kid had read)

Anyway, my point is that, somehow a nine-year-old has more credibility in matters of life than I do. What's up with that? I've tried explaining that friends don't so much care whether they get someone else in trouble as long as they don't get in trouble themselves. Even after a stint in the corner this message falls on deaf ears. I've tried predicting the consequences for obviously foolish actions. They are still surprised when that tree branch breaks and they spill gracelessly to the earth.

In retrospect, I guess I didn't realize how wise my own parents were until I was an adult looking back. Turns out they were right pretty much all the time. Go figure. So, until my little wild ones grow up and have the benefit of hindsight, I suppose I'll just have to watch and laugh. And occasionally plaster their limbs with band-aids and antibiotic. God bless Neosporin.


By the way, guys, we still do it too. When was the last time your wife warned you something was a bad idea and it turned out she was right? Even though a friend of yours told you it would work. Yeah. I know.

Updates...

I added a few elements to the blog. I'm trying stuff out. Feel free to hit me with your suggestions or thoughts.

The good thing is...

Children are a gift, God says. The 127th psalm goes so far as to call a passle of yard-apes a 'full quiver'. As in that bag that hangs on Legolas's back where he keeps his arrows. I have to agree, like arrows, children dangerous when if played with incautiously. And, they have a point. (Children, I mean. Not the Psalmist. Well, he had a point too. But...nevermind....)

The point of children is manifold. Childhood is a transition from birth to adulthood. No mother I know woud ever agree to give birth to an adult-sized baby. Also, children are especially pliable and open to learning in ways that adults are not. They absorb daily what they need to become healthy, well-adjusted adults. Hopefully.

But kids provide one valuable service that, recognized or not, God no doubt intended. They give us one of the most complete pictures we have of out relationship with Him. Children rival the Bible itself in teaching us about God. And, I'm not just talking about those times when we look to heaven in utter frustration and pray the five or six words we can remember of that Serenity prayer before we're interrupted. Again.

Children are born sinful, but ingnorant of it. No one thinks a baby is selfish or demanding for it's behavior. But a baby cannot have a real friendship either. It has to grow, to mature. Children behave outwardly exactly how we behave inwardly. As Christians, we are trying to learn a better way, but it is God who is teaching us. As kids grow, they pass through stages of concrete thought into the abstract We see how we are being lifted up out a world made only of what we can see and touch into spiritual world that's just as real with rules and consequences of its own.

Pay attention. This metaphor applies to every part of your relationship with God. What do you want for your children? How do you want them to talk to you? How comfortable should they feel at home, the home you provide for them? What do you fear for them? Hope for them?

Smart parents teach their kids cool stuff. Wise parents learn cool stuff from their kids.