The trouble with youth, the trouble with parents, the trouble with society

2 Timothy 2:22
So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

It would appear from this passage that not much has changed in 2,000 years. The young among us still need to be encouraged to "flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness".

I hear a great number of people openly wondering how our society got so far with teen pregnancies, drug use, the high school drop out rate and on and on. The passage above gives us a clue. No longer does society judge people. There are excuse makers among us that have gone too far.

To fix this we need to start holding our children to account for their actions. If they get pregnant before they are ready Christian parents say "well, at least they didn't get an abortion". Since when was the measure of morality not killing a child? It is still a shame for them to get pregnant in the first place.

When they do drugs I hear parents and others saying "It is just a phase, after all I had a wild youth". Since when did our bad behavior as young people justify more bad behavior. When did that ever make bad behavior acceptable.

When our children tell us they are going to drop out of school we tell them it is OK and we still love them. Since when was punishing your children showing a lack of love? To the contrary. The Bible tells us Proverbs 13:24 He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.

Let us first encourage our children to flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace. Let us agree as a nation to bring our children back to some semblance of sanity through discipline.