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Development Topics
Our Ultimate Priority as Parents
Teaching Your Teen About the Meaning of Life
Millions of young people have grown up in the relative opulence of our culture without their parents ever once teaching them about transcendent values.
“More money has been spent on their education, medical care, entertainment, and travel than any who have gone before,” says Dr. James Dobson. “Yet we have failed them in the most important of all parental responsibilities: We have not taught them who they are as children of God or what they have been placed here to do.”
In Life on the Edge, Dr. Dobson says the questions confronting the human race are the same for everyone. They are:
- Who am I as a person?
- How did I get here?
- Is there a right or wrong way to believe and act?
- Is there a God, and if so, what does He expect of me?
- Is there life after death?
- How do I achieve eternal life, if it exists?
- Will I someday be held accountable for the way I have lived on earth?
- What is the meaning of life and death?
The answers to these eight questions are what we might call “first truths.” How tragic, therefore, when a teenager has only vague notions about his or her life’s meaning and purpose. Without any understanding of his origin or destination, a young adult will invariably drift off course.
Ultimately, a young adult may embrace irrational “theologies” and “values” in a vain attempt to escape a growing sense of despair. “Meaning in life comes only by answering the eternal questions listed above, and they are adequately answered only in the Christian faith,” says Dr. Dobson.
“No other religion can tell us who we are, how we got here, and where we are going after death. And no other belief system teaches that we are known and loved individually by the God of the universe and by His only Son, Jesus
Christ.”
More than ever, it’s important for Moms and Dads to make matters of faith an everyday
topic of conversation.
Do you have thoughts, questions, advice on this topic? Post your stories and comments in the forum for other parents to respond to. Enter the forum now.
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