Just A Kid

So I have been on a 'blogging about church' kick lately. Today will be more of the same. I am going to blog about the Presidential race but not yet. I guess maybe my blog today is not so much about church as it is about people. I like people. I think they are interesting. I have a heart for people that other people kind of give up on. I have spent the past 12 years working with people that a lot of the world either doesn't understand or doesn't want to try to understand--kids/teens/young adults.

One of the things I have noticed in working with this age group has nothing to do with them but with the adults that surround them. For the most part adults want kids to do well and they are willing to help out. But there are occasionally some that look at kids in a very ineffective way (I am putting this nicely).

CASE IN POINT: A lot of times if an adult has a negative encounter with a kid when they are, say, 8 or 10, they often look at the kid through negative lenses for the rest of the kids life. No matter how much the kid changes over the next 10-15 years of their life, they have this stigma around them that they just can't shake.

I don't really like this kind of attitude. I wish people could look at kids as they WILL be not as the ARE. This type of vision is the exact vision God has when it comes to his children. I am so glad that God does not look at me and see my worst days and my sinfulness but instead sees a restored life.

I think short sidedness is a problem in our churches but its really more a problem in our world. People are generally judged by what they have been not what they could be. At some point, we have to realize that it doesn't have to be that way. My wife has me watching this Entertainment shows based out of Hollywood. I think they are waste of space and time but find myself watching them. Right now one of THE stories over the past year or so has been Brittany Spears. I mean all these shows have something about her or her family pretty much every day. I am actually finding myself feeling more and more sorry for her. I sit there and think, 'why don't they just leave her alone so she can get out of this cycle'. It is the same way I have felt as I have had conversations with certain adults over the years that put certain kids in a box that they don't deserve to be put in. The kid isn't given a chance. And at some point the kid just gives up and doesn't try and change or grow and just becomes molded into the person that everyone thinks he/she will forever be--its called self-fulfilling prophecy.

This drives me crazy.