The Influence Vacuum

It's ten o'clock: do you know where your children are?

It's possible the first time that or a similar statement was spoken was in the classic Scottish tale of Wee Willie Winkie.  It's possible it was Irv Weinstein, once the news director of WKBW in Buffalo, New York.  But it's not who said it that matters; it is what is being said.  And it may be the most important question you ever have to answer for your kids, regardless of the time.

Ask yourself this: when is the last time you can truly say you influenced your children?  Was it this morning at the breakfast table?  Last night, shooting hoops in the driveway?  A week ago before Sunday school?

The sad reality is that many parents can't answer that question, and many don't care.  Many parents today are content to allow the school system, friends, friends' parents, even television to have more influence over their kids than they do themselves.  More often than not, it is the father who lacks the ambition to sway his kids' hearts.  That is because men today have been stripped of a few critical things that grant that ambition in the first place.  And it is resulting in what I call the Influence Vacuum.
The Influence Vacuum is a simple principle.  It states the following: if you aren't influencing your children, someone else is.  And chances are pretty good that, if your child steps foot outside your home at any point in the day, they are probably not being taught about how much Christ loves them.

The United States of America today has itself been influenced away from God to such a degree that a population that identifies itself to be a vast majority Christian is allowing Christianity to be trampled at every turn.  I'm not talking about gay marriage or other such things that we Christians view as sinful, either.  Those are other topics for other times.  I'm referring to allowing our basic liberties as Christians to be beaten to an unrecognizable pulp.  It means that minority groups in this world are yelling so loudly to make their points that we, the meek, timid majority, are being drowned out into relative silence.

And what that boils down to is simply that your kids are not likely to be influenced for God if they are receiving their primary life education outside of your home and your own sphere of friends.

So it becomes absolutely critical that you start early educating your children about God and His love for us. It is critical that you teach your children to be open with their friends about their faith.  Because that influence vacuum cuts both ways: other children are not being influenced at home, either. Your children, at any age, can be Evangelists too.

That is, however, why you need to start early.  If you haven't started doing so by the time your child first responds to a specific word, you have given up the advantage.  Why?  Because if they can respond in a specific way to a specific word, they have already begun to be influenced.  And now they are going to respond more quickly to other stimuli.  Every passing day that goes by without the love of Jesus Christ being an ever-present part of their life is going to move them one day closer to rejecting Him entirely, because deception is the Enemy's one and only tool.  So start early.  Start.  Early.