Text Messages: Text and Drive

We all know the problem with texting and driving.  Chances are, you’ve seen one of those commercials that warns of the dangers of texting and driving.  I’d say it’s an epidemic.  I’ve told our students if I ever catch them texting and driving the first thing I would do is let their parents know!

Texting and teenage life seem to be quite the pair.  Studies estimate teens send about an average of 4,000 texts a month!  They’re having conversations and placing heavy emphasis on communication in their relationships.  What about communication with God?

A few weeks back we talked about God’s text message.  Simply put, we tried to challenge students to make God’s text the authority in their lives.  And how did we challenge them?  Well, oddly enough, we challenged them to text and drive.  Spiritually, you can’t make it on the roads of life without texting while you drive along the journey.

So many students are caught off guard by sharp turns, bumps in the road, and are trying to swerve at the last minute to avoid big collisions in this life.  The problem with the road they are on is that it seems dark, fast paced, and treacherous.  So many of them are driving through the darkness of this life simply hoping that something they do will be enough to help them arrive. 

Remember that song about the Bible being a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path?  Truth.  Simple truth.  However, our teens are missing it.  Authority, direction, and guidance seem to be coming more from culture than from God’s text message.  The value of scripture has been replaced by facebook, instagram, and snapchat.  No wonder so many teens are surprised when they collide with life. 

We’ve got to challenge students to make scripture the authority for their lives.  How do we do this?  We have to make it the authority for our lives as parents and adults.  We need our kids to see us in the word.  If God’s text message isn’t changing us, how can we expect it to change our kids?  Secondly, we’ve got to use scripture to in our prayers and in our correction of our children.  Finally, our families need to be memorizing scripture.  When Jesus was faced with a few speed bumps in the desert, he quickly cited scripture as his defense against Satan.  He knew the promises of God would protect him because he knew the promises of God. 

Text and drive.  If not, expect a collision.