Moments Together for Couples 12/19

by Dennis and Barbara Rainey

2 Timothy 2:3
Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

Parents, you are desperately needed in a major battle before us. The need was illustrated when I was asked to speak to junior high kids about sexual abstinence.

First I spoke to the girls. I introduced three senior high girls who were all taking a stand for virginity and purity. Two hundred junior high girls responded by breaking into spontaneous applause. They seemed hungry for a model other than Madonna.

The boys were different. When I introduced two high school students as young men who were committed to moral purity and to being virgins when they married, a group began laughing. They mocked the young men from the high school. It made me mad. I bristled and walked directly toward the hecklers and told them, "That attitude is exactly what is wrong with our nation-there's little or no respect for those who have standards."

As I thought about these kids getting married I was sobered for the next generation. What kind of homes will they create? What will their children be like? I couldn't help but wonder if law and order as we now know it would be considered the "good old days."

Private Dad and Private Mom, put on your battle fatigues and expect hardship and anguish in raising a kid who doesn't always do it right. Suffer hardship as a good parent-soldier who has to give up everyday pleasures to win the war. Lay aside those golf clubs, those civic activities.

Get involved in your children's battles. Be there for them. Know their battlefields. Carefully screen those with whom they go into battle-their peers. Prepare them for the war zone of their own adolescent sex drive. Talk about it even when you are both embarrassed.

Above all, don't stick your head in a foxhole and pretend the battle doesn't exist.

Prayer:

That you and your family will be wise in battle and that God will grant you victory in the battle for moral purity.

Discuss: What are you doing to help your children win in the battle for absolutes and values?

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