About 3 days a week I take the bus to work. Sharon and I have been down to 1 car in Southern California (a cultural anomaly, I know) for more than a year. This morning I was reading USA Today on my phone when I happened across a headline about Justin Bieber's faith and how explicit it is in his new film (which, for the life of me, I can't understand being made, let alone in 3D, but that's a blog for another time). When I glanced up I saw a McDonald's on the left side of the bus. There is no McDonalds on the left side of the bus on the route to my office until you are past my office. Yep. That would be it. I had missed my stop because I was reading about Justin Bieber's faith (and the fact that Katy Perry is the child of two pastors, as I understand it). So I had a wonderful 15 minute walk BACK to my office. Good exercise, but I kept muttering, "I missed my stop because I was reading about Justin Bieber? What does this say about me? What would my friends think?"
So I decided to be proactive and tell you how this incident relates to the book of Ezekiel. In chapter 18 Ezekiel is addressing the Diaspora's objections to God judging Judah. "Isn't it true, Ezekiel, that if God judges Judah, He's doing so because of what their father's did?" Ezekiel responds to the question with a story about a godly man who fathers a child who grows up to live an ungodly life. In turn, that ungodly man fathers a child who grows up to live a godly life. In each case Ezekiel points out that ultimately the decision to follow, in this case YHWH, is a personal choice regardless of who the parent is. (Obviously Ezekiel had never read the promise in Proverbs that says if I just train a child to be a Christian I can't lose. Oh wait, that isn't a promise? It's a proverbility? Oh....)
Anyway, it turns out that Justin Bieber is the child of a single teen mom who came to faith in Jesus. Justin shares that faith with his mom. Now he wants others to know Jesus. And then there is Katy Perry who comes from parents who are both pastors who didn't let her listen to secular music. She attended Christian School and camps. She grew up to record "I kissed a girl" and "Ur so gay." (I want to point out these songs were not recorded by the Christian record label she had signed to earlier in her career.) She recently was married in a "traditional Hindu ceremony." It's a sobering reminder that we who know Jesus need to parent in a way that honors God, but we don't get guarantees on how that will be lived out by our children. I don't know about you, but I keep praying for my kids.
And all this because I missed my bus stop...
