Relationships:
Parents are Real People Too
Ron Fast
[email protected] Copyright 2002 by Ron Fast
Intro
Ever get the feeling that you and your parents don’t live in the same world or maybe even the same planet as you do?
Maybe God created parents out of moon dust instead of earth dust and that’s why they seem to be really out of this world.
Why do you suppose that God created parents in the first place? Did He create them just to make your lives miserable? Maybe He was on vacation when parents were created and He just left it up to His angelic assistants to do it.
For the next couple of weeks we are going to look at the relationships that are important to us. This week's G-TRAX is on parents. First thing I want to make absolutely clear is that this is not going to be a parent-bashing session. In fact, I want each of you to know that I think that parents are the coolest thing since sliced bread. Yes, Parents are people too and God created them just like He created you and me. In fact, uh. . . I’m not sure I should tell you this, but there is this really big secret that I’d like to share with you. Are you ready for this?
The Big Secret
KO. . . OOPS. . . I meant OK. In order for me give you this top secret information, I’ll need to check your I.D. You have to be a real-human--created-in-the-image-of-God type person and not a clone. There is only one way to check this. What I need you to do is to turn to the next page and follow the instructions.
WAIT
WAIT
WAIT
I SAID WAIT just a minute.
Before you turn the page, you have to be totally committed to doing this. So I need you to take a pledge. So repeat after me. . .
I . . .
Uh. . . . I’m waiting
Hey. . .How’d you get to this page? You’re cheating, right? I told you not to turn the page until you took this pledge.
Oh. . .
OOPS!! My bad!! We ran out of room on the previous page.
Okay, you can go ahead and turn to the next page.
Okay, now your humanness needs to be validated by our special deluxe human-sensing-quite-amazing-in-fact-stupendous-nose-print-analysis machine. Yup . . . I thunk this name up all by myself. Pretty cool, huh!!!!!! I spent hours trying to come up with that name, well, okay, maybe not hours, but probably more like 5 seconds.
Anyway, what I need you to do is to put your nose in the little box, called the Nosal Identification Unit or NIU for short, on this page. Now, for some, this may be a bit of a challenge, but it’s a great eye-nose coordination exercise. Of course, you could do the running start thing and then do a face-plant onto this page and hope that it lands in this box.
Did you do it yet? If you made it, then turn to the next page for the results. If you missed, go ahead and try again.
YOU CAN DO IT!!!
Okay! Now turn to the next page and brace yourself for a huge surprise.
Here it is. Did you know that God created you out of parent dust too? In fact, He created parents out of the same “human-making-down-to-earth-real-honest-to-goodness-earth-dust” stuff that He used to create you. No kidding. Aw . . . Come-on. . . I’m really not kidding. Okay, I can tell by the look on your face that you think I’m out of my freaking gourd (my head). You’re thinking that I dyed my hair one too many times and the dye went straight to my brain cells and totally DBAR (Damaged them Beyond All Recognition). God created them and you out of the same material.
OKAY. . . I’ll wait until the shock wears off.
But that’s not all. If you order now, we’ll send you this lovely set of Ginsu knives. OOPS!! This commercial time-out was put in at the wrong time.
Here’s the other shocking part. Brace yourself. You wouldn’t exist today without your parents. Yup. That’s the gospel truth.
Isn’t that the coolest thing you’ve ever heard? WOW!! It really freaked me out too when I heard this but now I’m really, totally cool with it.
I think it’s just skippy, don’t you???
There is a reason that God created you to come from your parents and just maybe if you complete this G-TRAX you’ll figure out why. I’m so excited that I think I’m going to explode. Now that’d be gross!! Little bits of Ron all over the place. YUCK!!!
Anyway, let's get down to the nitty-gritty and see what we can dig up on relationships with your parental units.
Monday
What's up with Parents?
Let's get your feelings about parents out of your head and down on paper.
Imagine that you could go to a parent supermarket and shop for your parents. You could go down the aisles and pick and choose just exactly what you want in a parent. You get a shopping cart and you have a shopping list. From the list below, write down the 4 most important qualities, one from each aisle, that you would use to build your ideal parent.
What did you pick (please be honest)?
If you could pick 2 from your list of 4, which ones would you pick and why?
1st Choice:
Why?
2nd Choice:
Why?
Read the following list and write down "Yes" if you feel you are struggling with this problem or "No" if this is not a problem in you life, or "Maybe" if you're not quite sure.
a. There's no way I can talk to my parents about personal stuff.
b. My parents argue or fight with each other.
c. My parents don't understand me.
d. My parents don't trust me.
e. My parents don't like the friends I hang with.
f. My parents don't listen to me.
g. My parents nag me all the time.
h. My parents still treat me like a little kid.
Tuesday
Life without parents
Imagine what it would be like without parents. Imagine that there was no curfew. You could stay up as long as you wanted. You could eat chocolate cake for breakfast which, by the way, contains all 4 foods groups, (chocolate, sugar, icing and uh. . . ummmm. . .oh yeah, cake). So it actually is a very balanced diet. And if you do what I do with chocolate cake, I put it in a bowl, pour milk on it and smoosh it until it turns into soup. Then I sluuuuuuuurrrrrrrp it down. See, I add milk, so that's one more food group, milk. OOOPS! Where was I going with this? . . . Oh, yeah, parents or living without them? Write down all the positive things of life without parents.
Now write down all of the negative things.
Trading Places
Now imagine that you were allowed to switch places with your parents for one day; that's 24 hours or 1440 minutes or 86,400 seconds. What changes would you make to the rules in your house? Why would you change them?
Wednesday
The Perfect Son
God gives us a teensy-weensy look at what Jesus was like when He was growing up. Let's see how He treated His parental units. Turn in the New Testament to the book of Luke. Are you there yet? Come on! I'm waiting. Okay, now go to chapter 2 and read verse 41 to the end of the chapter. How did Jesus deal with His parents? (If you come up with a negative answer, look again.)
Reread verse 52 - What does this verse tell you about Him and His relationship with His parents?
How does your relationship with your parents stack up to Jesus’ relationship with His parents?
Thursday
What Pleases God?
This is one area that God doesn't give us
a whole lot of specific help on. Sometimes I think it would have been cool for God to have like the "Ten commandments for parents" or "How to get along with your parental units in 12 easy steps".
I think that God sometimes likes to disguise or hide specific truths in the Bible so that we would have to dig for it. Like a buried treasure. He wants us to dig for the real treasure buried in His Word.
Let's take a look at some scripture and see if we can apply it to our relationship with our parents.
Read the following passages and write down how you might apply them to your relationship with your parents.
1. Prov. 3:11-12
2. Col. 3:20-21
3. Prov. 20:11
4. Eph. 6:2-3
Friday
Relationships
Let's look at the different relationships that you are involved in right now. Write down those different kinds of relationships.
Now, which of these relationships are the top three?
If you haven't done this already, put the above three relationships in order of importance.
Do you think that God would agree with how you prioritize them?
Why do you think that God set up this priority system to our relationships?
Saturday
Apply It
God never said that relationships were going to be easy. If they were easy, then it wouldn't require any work on our part. If we wouldn't have to work on our relationships, then I don't think we would appreciate them as much.
Let’s wrap up this G-TRAX with some specific “How To’s”. Write down 3 specific ways you can show your parents how much you love them this week.
1.
2.
3.
*******
Ron Fast is the author of G-TRAX Devo's, Biblical devotionals for youth. G-TRAX Devo’s are now available online at www.youthministrydevotionals.com in an interactive form. He has over 9 years of experience working with Junior High and Middle School students. His personal mission is “to make the Bible relevant to today’s youth”.