Everything is permissable... but

“Everything is permissible for me"—but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me"—but I will not be mastered by anything.
1 Cor 6:12

My family all sat together in our living room. I wish I could tell you the picture warmed my heart…but it didn’t. We were together but not “together”. A football game was on the television, two of us held laptops checking Fantasy Football scores, another played a game on Ipod touch and I held my Blackberry checking Facebook. The last bit of family conversation I could recall revolved around when to go play Xbox. I wish I could tell you this “family moment” was an unusual occurrence, but over the past few weekends it has been the norm at our house. I am not sure how we slipped into this kind of distracted, disengaged-kind-of-normal… but we have. Now mind you, none of us are doing anything immoral but it seems we have spent too much time lately on things that are permissible but not necessarily beneficial. I have to confess that I have even wondered if those permissible things (like Facebook) have started to “master” me. Yep, I do believe the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us something.

I am so thankful for the gentle leading of the Holy Spirit. He is so good to warn us when things start to get out of hand—not so we can fall into legalism but so we can experience the good things of God which are so much better than the worldly things which might consume and distract us. God gives His people freedom but He also gives us the Holy Spirit to guide us to walk freely in that freedom – not mastered by anything of this world. The enemy wants us to be so consumed, so distracted that we fail to hear the Holy Spirit and the enemy doesn’t just use sin in his arsenal. He also delights in tempting us to choose the permissible over the beneficial. As Christians and as parents, we need to slow down and listen to the Holy Spirit. We need to evaluate our lives, learn to balance our time, choose those things which are beneficial and eternal and teach our children to do so as well. When we do, we will be blessed in this life and the life to come.

Father: Thank you for your Holy Spirit. Thank you for giving us freedom, but thank you also for giving us guidance to choose your best in this life. Help me to hear your voice and walk in your ways. Help me to guide my family so they will learn to do follow you and not be mastered by those things which are not beneficial. I love you Lord. I need your guidance daily. May I live this day and spend my time loving others and bringing you glory. Amen.