Working with kids can give you valuable insight into what the next generation deals with daily. If you will listen, they will not stop talking. If you will ask questions, they will answer. If you really ask the hard questions, they will think about their answers.

This is something we’ve been doing a lot of lately in our Sunday School class the past few weeks. We have been asking the hard questions to our 5th graders. They have been going home, thinking of questions, and coming back to find out the answers.

While discussing answers to the questions, my husband and I constantly stress the importance of being real and transparent to all we meet. We might be the only Jesus some people see. So, we ask them almost weekly, “What do people see when they see you?”

As we had this discussion one Sunday, a kid asked the question, “What do we do when our parents don’t do this? They let me hear cuss words in my video games and TV shows but then get upset if I don’t pray before every meal. If prayer were so important, why do they let me listen to the bad words?”

Wow! The kids are dying for consistency in us! Lord, please forgive us all for our inconsistency.

If you don’t have kids, you still have a moral responsibility to mentor the next generation. All children look to someone, maybe you, to figure out how to base their lives. When they see our inconsistencies, they are confused.

Maybe confessing our inconsistency to our kids would be a good first step. This verbalization by us would show them our acknowledgment that what we do and/or say is not always right. They need to know we make mistakes. We have to confess and change. This is how we will save our children.

What children are under your influence? Are your signals consistent or mixed? What area of your life needs work?

© 2014 Susan M. Sims

Image courtesy of  Stuart Miles / freedigitialphotos.net

Follow me on Twitter or Facebook.

Looking for a small group Bible study? Look no further: Being Transparent: With Yourself, God, and Others