Own It!

“Turn your back on lustful thoughts and give your positive attention to goodness, integrity, love, and peace” 2 Tim.2:22 [Ph, emphasis added]

Yesterday we learnt to take charge of ourselves and take charge of our minds. Today I am urging you to take it a step further especially if you are a parent. You need to take charge of the media intake of your children. It is amazing how parents today allow their children to watch all sorts of things on television. It is almost as if some parents are not even interested in going through the pains of regulating the media that the children watch.

Some parents are just not willing to put in the time and the effort required for parenting in our times. Some parents actually say to me that that is what is on television. Really? Is that your justification for lax parenting? I know this will make some of us uncomfortable but these things must be said because our children will become what they behold. How they think determines how they will live their lives and guess what? You will not always be with them. Their lives are being shaped by their thoughts and if it is today’s media, then we have a lot of work to do.

Ladies, have you noticed that most of the clothes in the market these days are revealing [provocative]? But you do not wear them like that because that is the ‘only thing in the market’. I know a lot of ladies settle for it but a lot of other ladies too go the extra mile to put decent twists to those clothes. Or they insist on getting alternatives even if it means combing every shop at the mall. You still take the pains to wear decent clothing because you know the value. But you leave your children to watch [and feed on] the junk the media is pumping out these days. You cannot afford to be comfortable with that. Please take charge!

I came across some mind-boggling statistics that states that by the time a child finishes secondary school he would have spent eighteen thousand [18,000] hours with the television. In case you want to benchmark that, he would have spent twelve thousand [12 000] hours in school by the time he finishes secondary school. That is scary; especially because you and I know what the media content is like these days. I am not saying that the television in itself is bad, but you need to take charge of your own; do not let it own you.

Thought: Make a list of activities to deliberately shorten television time for your children.

Prayer: Father, I commit today to take charge of parenting my children and bring them up in the way of the Lord, in Jesus Name.