From the Moody Radio Program, Midday Connection: "A couple from our church came home and caught their teenage daughter having sex with her boyfriend. As you can imagine, they were extremely upset. All three of them came to a counseling session and sat down on a couch in my office. The mother and father sat with the girl sitting right between them, who was obviously embarrassed. Her head slumped down between her shoulders. The mother and father started to relay in detail what had happened and I could see the girl becoming very uncomfortable, so I asked for them both to step out into the hallway, while I talked one on one with their daughter. "I used to have a good relationship with my Dad" the girl said. " When I was little I used to stand in the driveway and wait for him to come home... when he got out of the car, I would hug him and he would ask, How's my little princess?" The girl started to cry as she admitted, "I guess I'm not his little princess anymore." I asked for her parents to come back in and they both took their positions sitting on either side of their daughter. The Dad began to speak. "I used to have a great relationship with my daughter... my favorite time of day was when I would come home and she would meet me in the driveway." At this point he reached over and took his daughter's hand and started crying too. "She would come and give me a hug and I would always ask, "How's my little princess?"
I heard this story last week and thought about how sad it was that these two people who loved each other very much had grown so distant. The truth was that they both wanted the same thing, but failed to communicate it. They spoke to each other in passing, but had each become unapproachable when it came to their feelings. Things get busy, work gets hectic, schedules conflict, kids grow up and think they know everything and parents in an attempt to avoid awkward conversations stop talking to their kids about important issues.
Issues like sex, faith, entertainment and friend relationships hardly ever get get talked about in our homes. In a discussion in last nights Senior High youth group, the majority of kids said that the most talked about issue in their home was their grades. When asked if their parents talk to them about drugs or alcohol they mostly said "NO" because they were smart enough on their own not to do them. When asked what they would do if their parents ever approached them to talk about sex, most said they would walk away or just shake their head and go to their rooms. When I inquired if any families prayed together other than just at meal times, 99% said they didn't. Then when asked if they were a parent, would they think it important to talk to their teenagers about faith, sex, friend relationships or drugs & alcohol and pray together as a family all of them said YES.
In our modern age, communication has never been easier... Everyone I know has a cell phone and almost everyone I know has email, myspace or facebook. The internet has changed the way the world works. These "communication" devices make it so easy for us to talk to one another but also often take the place of dinner-time, family centered communication. Texting is now overtaking conversation.
I asked a middle schooler last year why texting is so popular? She told me, "It's less personal... it's less emotional. You can choose to respond or not to respond and there are no real expectations."
It is sad when people have more of a relationship with their cell phone or their computer than they do other people or their own families... How much easier is it to lie or mislead people on a cell phone then looking each other in the eye? Many parents can tell how their kids are feeling, just by looking at them...
All meaningful relationships involve time investments and real communication. If we want to have a meaningful relationship with our God, it takes spending time in His Word and time on our knees in prayer. Christianity is a relationship, but I don't think God would settle for a prayer of, "OMG, How R U? luv ya bff, ttly" and neither should we. This kind of "communication" is a shallow substitue for real family time.
"The Problem with Communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.."
-George Bernard Shaw
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