Thursday, November 30, 2006

Respect for what

My current job at the YMCA, although my thrust is rock wall instruction, likes for me to have a time of the class when I talk with the kids about character values. These character values are specifically caring, honesty, respect, responsibility. Since the class consists of younger kids around 7-8 years old, it is tough for them to articulate things and so I try to help them along as they do their best to communicate these words. Normally it's a pretty good time.


Yesterday we were up to the word respect. After we had talked about respect I, as I normally do, asked for examples of the word that we're talking about. This time though, I did it a little bit different in that I asked two questions: "What are some ways that you can respect people" and "What are some ways that you can respect the environment". I sat there in absolute amazement as they could rattle of dozens of ways to respect the environment, but yet could not come up with a single example of how to respect a person.
I was struck with how misaligned we are as people. Where we could but more emphasis on the things around us than the people around us. God's heartbeat is for people, not the bald eagles. God is after the hearts of men, not the hearts of artichokes. I pray that the Lord will align our culture with Him. Be in prayer for the young people of today, this is the kind of society we live in today, and they are being influenced greatly. We need to educate them with the Word of God.

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