Life2gether

This picture was #5 on Time’s Top 10 List of Photos of 2009. The description: Airline passengers stand on the wings of a US Airways Airbus 320 jetliner that safely ditched in the frigid waters of the Hudson River in New York City after a flock of birds knocked out both its engines on Jan. 15.

• Go here to see Time’s Top List of Everything for 2009

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit it.  I’m an overprotective parent.  I have a tendency to overdo it and obsess over the little things that don’t really matter.  I guess that’s why I was intrigued by this week’s cover of TIME magazine entitled: The Case Against Over-Parenting: Why Mom and Dad Need to Cut the Strings.

Nancy Gibbs begins her article with these provocative words:

The insanity crept up on us slowly: we just wanted the best for our kids. 

Ironically, a good desire has led many parents to become obsessed with their kids’ safety and success.  Gibbs calls them “helicopter parents” as they hover over their children’s lives from the classroom to the ball field protecting them and pushing them to succeed. 

The result?  By worrying about the wrong things, Gibbs says, “we do actual damage to our children, raising them to be anxious and unadventurous.”  (Pediatricians have also found that this hurried lifestyle of constant pressure and stress can contribute to health problems like childhood obesity and depression).

So what’s the solution?  Well, if the problem was simply hovering over our children’s lives, the solution would be to simply back off and lighten up.  And there’s some truth to that!  But the problem goes much deeper. 

The problem is that we are afraid.  If our greatest aim as parents is to protect our children and prepare them to receive some kind of academic or athletic recognition, than most likely we are parenting out of fear.  Why?  Because deep down we’re scared if they don’t succeed.  We feel like we’ve failed as parents.  So we work hard to prepare our children to make the grade or make the team so we would look good.  It’s like our children are little trophies that we, as Paul Tripp says, “secretly want to display on the mantels of our lives as visible testimonies to a job well done” (Age of Opportunity, p. 35). 

If we were honest we would admit that much of our parenting is motivated by fear.  That’s what keeps us from lightening up and letting go of the reins.  And what’s more, as Christians we spend so much time protecting our children from the world that we fail to prepare them to make a difference in this world.  Biblical parenting, however, pictures parents as courageous warriors getting ready to release their children into battle.  Psalm 127:4 says,

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior so are the children of one’s youth.

Arrows were made to fly.  They can’t sit safely in the quiver or rest on the bow forever.  They must be released!  That’s what our preparation is ultimately for–to release our children into this world equipped with the gospel of Jesus Christ to serve people for the glory of Christ. 

So lighten up all you helicopter parents!  (me included).  Let go of the reins.  Parent your children as God parents you.  Protect them, yes.  But all the while prepare them … so you can release them … to fly into the battle with the glory of the gospel.

• Read the article yourself in TIME magazine online
• Read more on Missional Parenting
• Read another post on Growing Up Too Fast and Then Not Fast Enough

This is an interesting site based on the scenario, if the world were a village of 100 people.  Satisfy your curiosity by checking out “The World of 100,” a series of poster-infographics designed by Tony Ng.  Includes age, skin color, religion, and more.

How does this picture affect you?  In some ways, it makes light of the up-close, horrific events of that day.  But in other ways, it reminds us that every day all across the world there is untold suffering and tragedy that no one ever sees, save One.  And thankfully, He is not a distant, apathetic Observer, but a personal and loving Savior who entered into our world and suffered more than any other person will ever suffer again to ultimately overcome our suffering and bring us into his arms of grace.  Run to him today and rest in his love for you on the cross.

(HT: Z)

Mohler here.  Piper here.  And my previous comments here.

Alan Silverlieb of CNN News:

Educators across America found themselves at the center of a political storm this week as conservatives exploded in anger over President Obama’s plans to give a speech to the country’s schoolchildren.

A stunned White House insisted the address, planned for Tuesday, is meant to encourage students to study hard and stay in school.

Many parents said they aren’t buying it. They said they’re convinced the president is going to use the opportunity to press a partisan political agenda on impressionable young minds.

“Thinking about my kids in school having to listen to that just really upsets me,” a suburban Colorado mother, Shanneen Barron, told CNN affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver. “I’m an American. They are Americans, and I don’t feel that’s OK. I feel very scared to be in this country with our leadership right now.”  (Read the rest).

I don’t know all of what President Obama will address in his speech, but I do know this–we need to teach our children to respect the president of the United States.  Years ago it was a big deal to hear the President speak.  We respected who he was and what he had to say.  Now we feel the need to blast him before he even speaks.  Please hear me.  It doesn’t mean we will agree with everything he says, but clearly the Bible teaches us that we are to respect and honor those who govern us (Rom. 13:1-7).  So perhaps instead of worrying so much about what the President might say and what our kids might hear, let’s pray for our president (1 Tim. 2:1-2) and model for our children an attitude of respect for him and for our God who is sovereign over all and holds Obama’s heart in his hands (Prov. 21:1).

Sometimes I need to get out of the little bubble of my life and remember the reality of the big world I live in.  Statistics like these from Family Care Foundation help to do just that:

If we could reduce the world’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:

• The village would have 60 Asians, 14 Africans, 12 Europeans, 8 Latin Americans, 5 from the USA and Canada, and 1 from the South Pacific
• 51 would be male, 49 would be female
• 82 would be non-white; 18 white
• 67 would be non-Christian; 33 would be Christian
• 80 would live in substandard housing
• 67 would be unable to read
• 50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation
• 33 would be without access to a safe water supply
• 39 would lack access to improved sanitation
• 24 would not have any electricity (And of the 76 that do
  have electricity, most would only use it for light at night.)
• 7 people would have access to the Internet
• 1 would have a college education
• 1 would have HIV
• 2 would be near birth; 1 near death
• 5 would control 32% of the entire world’s wealth; all 5 would be US citizens
• 33 would be receiving –and attempting to live on– only 3% of the income of “the village”

 For the full report, click here.

(HT: JustOneChild)

For those who haven’t yet seen this … it’s pretty funny.  Actually I can relate … my wife and I still have bunny ears on top of our T.V.!

Karen Crouse, writing for the New York Times on Michael Phelps’ marijuana pipe:

This is what I find so striking: A man whose chest has been covered with gold medals, has achieved international fame, showered with awards, and blessed with an incomprehensible amount of money, still feels compelled to press his face to a bong.

C.J. Mahaney responds:

It was Augustine who said that the soul is restless until it finds its rest in God. So true. Only God can satisfy the soul. Only the gospel of Jesus Christ provides forgiveness of sin, and therefore it is here in this gospel that we find rest for our restless souls.

Study the unflattering picture of Michael Phelps to be reminded of the deceitfulness of sin and the superficiality of fame and money. But also study the picture to be reminded of the message of Christ and him crucified for restless sinners like you, and me, and Michael Phelps.

• Read Crouse’s article, Phelps Apologizes for Marijuana Pipe
• Read Mahaney’s article, Michael Phelp’s Bong

Read the full story here.