“Here’s the truth. Your teens and twenties are your Plan A. At 50, you’re assessing whether Plan B or Plan C or any of the other plans you hatched actually worked. Your sixties and seventies, they’re an improvisation. Dick Van Dyke”

It would be easy to sit here in my old age and ponder the demise of today’s youth, but I find it really hard to do that.  I could expound on the differences of kids in my day and the ones of today, but I wouldn’t be honest.

OK, we kept our doors unlocked, but it was because we had nothing worth stealing.  We didn’t own a television set until I was ten years old.  My dad didn’t have a car until I was old enough to drive.  Everyone in our neighborhood was in the same boat.  We were all doing OK, but we didn’t have more than we needed.

Today children live in a much different world.  The opportunity for careers is much more extensive. Their role models are no longer their parents, grandparents, pastors or teachers.  Now they look to the athletes who make millions of dollars,  entertainers who achieve “instant” success and those who come up with the most innovative ways to make a buck.

It’s not their fault.  They’re growing up in a world where things and people are placed on pedestals and worshiped like the idols of old.  They’re also expected to achieve intellectually, financially and physically – and that’s before they even reach college.

Every generation has its faults.  We can’t escape the trends, the philosophies, the faults of society.  Now, more than ever, we’re faced with choosing between  right and wrong.  The basic tools for learning have been replaced with tolerance, entitlement and acceleration. The Ten Commandments are considered antiquated, the Bible is just another book to many and many churches have even become big businesses.

Life shouldn’t be complicated, but we’ve made it so, by interfering with God’s plans for us.  We need to step aside and let Him do His will.  He’s going to do it anyway.  Let’s not get in His way.