We'll start off with a "What in the world?" and probably end in a "Kids these days".
Adults, remember when you were little? I mean really little and you used to watch your parents, grandparents, older siblings, etc. enjoy the freedoms of being older than you? Maybe it was at night time when the oppressive regime of bed time would take place and you would beg and plead and whine to try and stay up just a little bit later. I remember knowing that if I pretended I was falling asleep in my parents' laps they would let me stay out, but in reality I wanted to see the end of the particular Seinfeld episode through half-closed eye lids.
Or being forced to sit at the kids table and always wondering why you weren't allowed to sit with the adults, hear the adult-talk and feign an air of maturity as you cracked a joke that had the whole table roaring. I always knew they wanted to hear my thoughts on Molly's foolish behavior in the most recent of American Girl I had just read. But I was never given the chance to share my thoughts because I was stuck at a table full of kids who thought reading was "so boring" and that I was "so weird"... I digress.
What I'm getting at is there was always this nagging idea that once you got to a certain age, once you were an adult, you would be able to do whatever you wanted! Stay up late, drive a car, eat whatever you wanted whenever you wanted, go to parties, live by yourself, do things by yourself. The list goes on and on, the world today tells you that you will be happiest when you have complete and total freedom and you've done a little bit of everything and anything!
The world has this mentality that being an adult means you get to do everything! Excessive alcohol? Fine! Drugs? Just be careful! Sex? Of course, are you a prude? Sin isn't a word in the growing population of today, sin is something of the past and today it's just "finding yourself". We excuse our sins because everyone else was doing it or we weren't as bad as some other people we knew about. How else are we supposed to learn until we've made every mistake in the books, right? Why teach young people about responsibility? Why teach them that choices have consequences, both good and bad. And the consequences range from something as small as, you should go to bed a half hour earlier because you have to get up early, all the way to if you do those drugs you will most likely get hooked and lose your life as you know it, literally and metaphorically. Or as I like to reason "Don't do ____, because you will get pregnant and die." No that's not really how I make decisions... But that is probably my second favorite quote from that movie.
An excuse I often hear is "I'm not hurting anyone." I'm not hurting anyone if I'm getting drunk before legal age (even after, getting drunk just isn't good). I'm not hurting anyone by sleeping with my boyfriend. I'm not hurting anyone by smoking weed. I'm not hurting anyone by lying to my parents, in fact I'm helping them, if they knew the truth they'd be crushed!
To quote some songs that are popular right now:
It's our party we can do what we wantIt's our party we can say what we wantIt's our party we can love who we wantWe can kiss who we wantWe can sing what we want...
Remember only God can judge yaForget the haters 'cause somebody loves ya...
This is all we got and then it's goneYou call us the crazy onesBut we gon' keep on dancin' 'til the dawn'Cause you know the party never endsAnd tomorrow we gonna do it againWe the ones that play hardWe live hard, we love hardWe light up the dark!
Responsible people worried about remaining righteous have become known as "haters" and that if you try to tell someone their wrong, you're oppressive or bigoted or judgmental.
First of all this lifestyle sounds horrible to me. People are always singing about staying up and out all night and partying and going crazy. I was in bed by 10:30 last night! I don't mean laying in bed getting ready to sleep. I mean eyes closed, hard breathing, teddy bear under my arm and limbs askew ASLEEP. And it was fantastic. I recently stayed out past midnight with some friends. It was the first time in a LONG time I had. And while I was enjoying myself I remember watching my phone turn from 11:59 to 12:00 and thinking "Hey! I haven't been out this late in a long time! Woo! Go me!" and literally by 12:10 I was asking my friends if we could go because I was ready for bed.
Second, the type of "fun", or what I'll focus on, "happiness" that the world tries to find in their freedom mentality is so temporary. You can find it even in the songs. They talk about partying all night only to "Do it all again" because in reality the happiness that they receive from a night of doing whatever doesn't last them long enough so they need to do it again and again.
The very fact that doing whatever you want or "self-indulgence" has been proven to only offer fleeting happiness in the example of Solomon.
A little background on Solomon:
Solomon was a king of Israel. He was a very successful king. So successful that he could pretty much have whatever he wanted. It's documented in Ecclesiastes, that he pretty much had whatever he wanted. He decided to test himself by giving himself all that he desired. Women, money, material items, alcohol, whatever he felt he wanted he gave to himself.
I xsaid in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself.” But behold, this also was vanity.1 2 I ysaid of laughter, “It is mad,” and of pleasure, “What use is it?” 3 Izsearched with my heart how to cheer my body with wine—my heart still guiding me with wisdom—and how to lay hold on afolly, till I might see what was good for the children of man to do under heaven during the few days of their life. 4 I made great works. Ibbuilt houses and planted cvineyards for myself. 5 I made myselfdgardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees. 6 I made myself pools from which to water the forest of growing trees.7 I bought male and female slaves, and had eslaves who were born in my house. I had also great possessions of fherds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and ggold and the treasure of hkings andiprovinces. I got jsingers, both men and women, and manykconcubines,2 the delight of the sons of man.
9 So I became great and lsurpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my lwisdom remained with me. 10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart mfound pleasure in all my toil, and this was my nreward for all my toil. 11 Then I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was ovanity and a striving after wind, and there was nothing pto be gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:1-11)What is his conclusion? It was ALL vanity. He would have been out there, with the party people, doing whatever he wanted, taking whatever he wanted. And at the end of the day, after he had what he wanted he realized what it was all worth. Nothing.
Now you may be saying "But I don't want to live like that forever, just live a little while I'm young. I'll stop when I'm older." But what worth is that to you? What is it worth to waste your life now? See, we tend to think that wasting a little time of worthlessness is inconsequential. But we're wrong in this assessment. The Lord warns against doing things we consider to be secret or not hurting anyone.
You felt secure in your wickedness,
But evil shall come upon you,
of which you know nothing. (Isaiah 47:10-11)
Love Always,
Christina
(Side note: I wrote this a while ago and I realized I never posted it before. I don't remember why I didn't but I thought I'd share anyways. I still feel the same way about it all)
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