unboilng the frog

Everyone has heard the story about the frog that is put in a pot of room temperature water and isn't smart enough to jump out as the heat increases. Eventually the frog boils to death. I've been thinking of that a lot lately. We are in that pot. We've put our kids in that pot. Don't get me wrong, we are "others loving", Jesus following die-hards. We want to be our best for Christ...but sometimes...that other stuff is just so darn fun. I'm not talking about anything too severe. We make sure our kids know they are being held to a higher standard than we had of ourselves at their age. And they are doing a pretty good job of upholding those standards. What I worry about is the things they've been given and the things we do for them.

My eyes have opened wider recently to the "have-nots" in the world. The gap is wide between the haves and have nots and it is getting wider and wider everyday. Just recently we bought a Kinect sensor for our Xbox. It is a new part of a gaming system that is touted for its ability to keep kids active instead of the same old sedentary video games. I like it, we've had a lot of fun with it, tons of family together time and a LOT of laughs. And it does keep the kids more active than say, Madden 11, but probably not as active as poor little "Joe Africa" fighting to find enough food each day to stay alive. See what I mean? The gap is HUGE.

It is hard to not give to my kids. I mean, I didn't really exsist as who I am before them. And, if I'm honest with myself, and sadly, I am brutally honest with myself to the point of tears often, I don't really exist outside of them. Jackie Kennedy said something (and I would quote but I'm too lazy to look it up so you'll have to be tolerant of my paraphrase) If we mess up on raising our kids, nothing else we do really matters. I pretty much take that to heart.

So I really want to raise kids with an awareness of the "have-nots". I want them to feel truly blessed with what they have and not entitled. I want to reverse the boil on the pot o' frog. But, the catchy part here, is maintaining my credibility. Learning to not want more than I need myself. That is tough...there is a lot of cool stuff out there. But, I can do without a lot of things...it is harder to withhold something from someone you love, enough to die for, a thing that you know would make them smile. But for how long? Until the next thing that everyone else is getting makes them feel less smiley about the thing you just got them. The fire under the pot is getting higher and hotter.