Kids In Crisis

JONESBORO, ARKANSAS: "I knew it was bad. I met four ambulances before I turned into the school, and there were two more coming out"--Bono, Arkansas mayor Ralph Lee (after the Jonesboro shooting).

PLANO, TEXAS: "This suburb of about 190,000 hardly looks like a place where young people regularly die of heroin . . . People move here to avoid inner-city schools and urban crime" (The New York Times).

"The people who live here are well-off, tend to make their money in Dallas, and likely have moved here to raise the kids in a place safe from the sins and woes of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Money magazine pegged Plano as the safest spot of its size in the nation. Then the dying came to town" (Esquire)

Both in rural and suburban America, parents are being shaken with the knowledge that their children are not safe. Not from violence, not from drugs. The shootings in Jonesboro and the heroin deaths in Plano (where twelve high school students have overdosed in the past year), are merely the latest examples of a culture whose violence is being increasingly directed at children. We must now admit our children are in crisis. What answers does God provide for us to deal with such disturbing realities? Where in scripture do we turn for comfort as we experience more and greater difficulties in raising children safe from harm?

First, we must realize that God has not promised to insulate us from worldly tragedy. We are not any less likely to be struck by a random act of violence than are others. However, there are principles in God's word designed to help us avoid some of the dangerous pursuits of today's children.

Second, there are no short cuts. What is required in order to produce children who understand the need to serve God and avoid the degradation of the world? Parents who are willing to take God's gift (Ps. 127:3) and, armed with God's instruction (Deut. 6:6-7; Eph. 6:4), raise children who are servants of God. This is not an easy task, but one to which all parents are called, and it is our own service to God which will have the greatest impact in determining what our children are to become.

Finally, no problem faces Christians for which one of our primary defenses should not be prayer. When all else seems lost, prayer can still accomplish much (Jas. 5:16). Not that prayer is viewed by us as a last resort, but as an ongoing, powerful tool in the fight to protect our children. We constantly pray because prayer is what works when nothing else does.

This issue of Abundant Life is dedicated to helping parents deal with the problems of violence which threaten them. Our aim is to assist godly parents as they strive to safeguard their children from all of Satan's devices.