Young people look to adults for leadership. It is up to us to make good decisions and lead a virtuous life if we want our children to follow in our footsteps, but more importantly to follow in our Lord’s footsteps. When we halt between decisions our children watch us to see the decision we will make. After all, every day decisions have to be made. Good, bad, right or wrong. Each moment presents us with a decision, whether to go the right way, or choose the easy way.
It is imperative we have a Biblical standard for our lives. God’s Word gives us His standard for right or wrong. It is the true moral compass for all of our lives.
The only way we are able to persuade others, whether our children or others, is to live a life of credibility and not tossed to and fro, vacillating from one side to the other. This is the only way you can be a leader in your home, workplace, community, congregation or state.
“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Revelation 3:15-16
“And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, the follow him. And the people answered him not a word.” I Kings 18:21
“And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the god of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15
“William Bennett in the introduction to his book The Moral Compass writes: “…much of life is a moral and spiritual journey, and we undertake it, at least in large part, to find our way morally and spiritually. Thus it makes no sense to send young people forth on such an endeavor having offered them only some timid, vacillating opinions or options about conduct in the hope that in the course of their wanderings, they will stumble onto some more definite personal preferences which will become their ‘values.’ We must give our children better equipment than that. We must raise them as moral and spiritual beings by offering them unequivocal, reliable standards of right and wrong, noble and base, just and unjust.” ~ William Bennett
“Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong and never to be content with a half truth when the whole can be one.”
~ From the Cadet Prayer, United States Military Academy
Eileen Light