Thoughts on an article from TIME-a bit more theological than I intended to go.....

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1940395-1,00.html

I found this article really interesting, simply because my parents and I discuss this all the time.

People seem to think that an increase in technology will bring about an absence of suffering and that they can prevent their kids from experiencing disappointment. Hate to break it to them, but as long as we're human (and broken by sin), there will always be disappointment. Kids skin their knees and hit their heads (yet they survive). Students fail tests and adults lose their jobs. Friendships, romantic relationships, sadly, even marriages break apart. We hurt each other, especially those we love dearly. People die.

Yet, behind the sadness and disappointment, there is beauty. There is a reason for discipline, a motive for perseverance. For the things we fail at, there's something only we can succeed at. For the words that hurt us, there are words that can heal. For every moment of pain, there's an even brighter moment of glory and pain, like a rainy day, can be seen as beautiful too. Finally, for the dark death that sin brings, there is the Light of Christ.

I always wondered why God let us suffer. There is no easy answer to that one. But, when I think of that question, I first think, "We chose to know good and evil.....that's where the evil part comes in." Yet, even more, I realize that He does this to bring us closer to Him. He wants to make us grow stronger, but that first takes experiencing weakness. He wants us to know joy, but we can't appreciate it without knowing pain. He wants to fill us....but we can't realize it without first being hungry.

Far from exploring the world,these kids are raised to become afraid of it. Far from relaxing and enjoying beauty, they're stressed and burned out from being spread too thin. Far from following their own God-given talents, they believe they're not worth much if they can't do everything. Far from honoring and acknowledging that they are made in the image of God, they're worried about being perfect for someone else.

When I see society moving away from God, it's not just the big ways like abortion, extreme poverty, torture, or the suppression of human rights. It's in the more subtle ways, the suppression of creativity, the ban on exploration. It's in the magazines telling women to look like Barbie (unless they want to be alone forever), the college seminars telling kids that heavy schedules are more important than their health, their families, or even the desire to explore what it is THEY want out of life. It's the emphasis on money and status over character and talent. It's the fear of pain over the willingness to persevere. It's the prevention of people becoming their full potentials, the potentials that God gave them.

With this, we're losing a sense of responsibility, an acknowledgment of free will, a drive to solve problems, and an astronomical amount of inspiration. This truly saddens me.