Teens

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Teaching With A Proud Heart?
By Dan Blankenship
© 2007 Dan Blankenship


Have you ever met a teenager who seems to always swim against the current? No, I don’t mean that in a literal sense; I’m talking about a boy or girl who challenges authority at almost every opportunity. Have you met someone like that? I know I have. And it is not very often that I see other teenagers intervening when these rebels-without-a-clue jump into action. But it is one of those refreshing Kodak-moments when a teen with no respect for authority is mentally challenged to justify his actions by one of his peers.

Now, I have no doubt that since I am writing for a Christian audience, some teens who read this column have already confronted their friends concerning some of their authority challenging activities. I know that as a teenager I constantly challenged my peers to act in a responsible manner. But here is where I made a major blunder; I reprimanded my friends for their bad behavior because I was proud of my own self-restraint. I did the “right” things because I believed myself to be a person with more self-control than those around me. I didn’t attempt to teach others a better way to behave because I was trying to instill God’s teachings into the minds of those around me, but I was trying to get others to mimic my own self-righteous behavior.

Proverbs 16:2-3 (NIV) says, “All of man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord. Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.”

If we attempt to teach others lessons in behavior, we must do so in order to glorify the work of God, not to magnify our own level of accomplishment. We are completely reliant on God’s will and direction.

Proverbs 16:5 (NIV) tells us that, “The Lord detests all the proud of heart.” Yet one more reason to advise others with a spirit of humility and compassion, always focused on not only what God would have us teach others, but how he would have us teach them.

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