You Reap What You Sow: Personal Responsibility

Have you ever been in that situation where something has gone wrong, whatever you wanted to happen just didn't happen, which happens. But the thing that really stinks is there's only one person to blame. Only one. And you're looking at them in the mirror. It is you.Today we're talking about personal responsibility,.

Feeding my faith. Well, God's word is made simple. Yeah,.

I saw a commencement speech where Jerry Seinfeld, the comedian, was doing the. You know, one of those big. He's got the hat on and the robe, the whole nine yards.And he said, we are embarrassed about things we should be proud of, and we're proud of things we are embarrassed about. And that is so true. And what's interesting about this is in Galatians 6, 7, it says, do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked.But I love this last part. A man reaps what he sows. And in today's society, it is always someone else's fault. And yet a man reaps what he sows.And so I've got five things that have failed us. And we're going to talk about what we can control, and we're going to start off talking about children, because I don't know if you know this or not.We got a problem with our kids. And the first person or the first people who could help with the children are parents and especially fathers.And there are a lot of people growing up without fathers. And so consequently, you have a bunch of men acting like boys, and they're not accepting their responsibility.I remember once I was in the kitchen and I started talking with my mom, and I don't remember what I said, but apparently I was starting an argument or something, and out of the living room, this thunderous sound erupted. And this was it. Who do you think you're talking to? And I just shook in my bones. And that was my dad. And I learned a very important lesson.You respect your mom. And if I didn't respect him, I was going to feel it.He never used to belt on me, but he was, you know, when it came to time to spank David and get him in line, that was my dad's role. And so when you look at children with no father, especially not to. We're not disrespecting moms here, but this is just some facts.They're five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime. They are nine times more likely to drop out of school. They are 20 times more likely to end up in prison.And lots of stuff, including being a Teen parent. And in Proverbs 1:8, it says, Listen, my son, to your father's instructions and do not forsake your mother's teaching. Both parents. Both parents.Because good parents teach good parents. Correct. And they love without discouraging their children. And that is. Is not an easy job. And I'm not here to say it is, but it is a job.It's a never ending job. And the other thing that drives me crazy is we all know how kids are made. It's not like you woke up and went, whoa, I'm what? Pregnant?How did that happen? Pretty sure. We all know that because you choose to be a parent and you're like, ha, ha, I didn't. I didn't want this baby. Well, let me guess.Let me tell you how you could have avoided that. You know, you choose that you should be then a productive part of society, right? That's what you're going to raise.You chose to be a parent, even if it was an accident, because you know how babies are made. And you rolled the dice.And now you've been given the gift of a child, and that means you've chose to ensure they become a productive part of society. That is what being a parent is, one of them. And I saw a video on TikTok of a woman who complained because I don't know what you call food stamps.They were called food stamps when I was on food stamps as a young kid. But she was complaining that she now had to trade chicken for soda because you can't buy soda on food stamps.And she was upset because she had 12 children. Sounds like a nursery rhyme. There was a woman who had 12 children. They lived in a, I don't know, shoe.And she couldn't get soda anymore because they took it off the food stamp thing. And I'm like, how you have 12 children.Somewhere along the line you should have figured out, when this goes in here and that happens, you end up with a baby. If you can't afford children, don't have children. You reap what you sow.The other thing I found weird about the American family as I looked into this, there's a video on this where Oprah is looking into this. And that is, have you heard of no contact? You know, the Bible says, honor thy father and mother, respect your elders.And we have doctors and psychiatrists that are saying, oh, you just need to cut everybody who doesn't agree with you out of your life. One out of three Americans are estranged from at least one family member.And it's all in the name of your personal mental health or your political beliefs. There are 2 billion with a B billion posts that have been flagged. No contact. And now these people feel alone. Of course they do.They just cut their family out of their life. They feel alone. And who do they, who do they reach out to and who do they feel like? You know, these people get me.The other people that are like, oh yeah, I'm no contact too.In fact, in the Oprah video, you can kind of, kind of, maybe I'm reading into it, like, oh, I've been no contact for two years with my parents and then I've been four years no contact with my entire family. Ah, try and top that. And I mean, there's a book, Adult, Adult children of emotionally immature Parents. You know what, I'm getting wound up.Parents are the foundation of the family. And when the family gets destroyed, our nation becomes weaker. That's what President Obama said.So that's the first place where we have failed our children. And that is. There are two words, by the way. One word is friend and the other word is parent. Do you know why there are two different words?Because it's two different things. Be a parent. You're, you're missing the long form, the, the, the long view here.But that's okay because we got the second thing and that is the school. Well, they're going to help us and help correct things. Well, in Proverbs 4. 7, It says the beginning of wisdom is this. Get wisdom. I love that.It's like, you know what? Get yourself some wisdom. He says, though it costs all you have. Get understanding. How do you get understanding? By listening to people.That is the opposite of no contact. But anyway, this is what's going on in the school. Problem one, and who does this point back at? The parents.There are six year olds in Marion County, Florida who are not potty trained. Are you kidding me? And in some cases they don't know their name and they don't know how to hold a book. Whose fault is that? The six year old's?No, the parent. Problem number two, kids don't behave. They just don't because we don't want to hurt their feelings or whatever.And I remember when I was in junior high, there was a teacher, he was the shop teacher, Mr. De Haven. And they have since taken this away. But if you got a SWAT, not a detention, not a whatever, you're getting a SWAT.And in some cases you would get two swats, or maybe three and Mr. De Haven would leave his door open when he delivered these. And you heard them all around the school. And you know what? We didn't have that many problems with people.You heard that and you went, yeah, I don't want that. Now in some schools now they've removed suspensions. Of course they removed swatting because it was inhumane or something. I don't know.Your butt was red. It hurt to sit down for 30 minutes. But mainly it was the public humiliation. And it wasn't even public.But they removed suspensions and in some cases they removed them because there were too many. Think about the logic of that one. And what did they replace it with? Restorative discipline. Have you heard of this nonsense?A person writes down what is bugging them instead. And so if the teacher's like, all right, I'm probably going to suspend you.And they come over and they see you've written down, you've written down that you know, I'm having a bad day because we didn't have any milk for the corn flakes. Oh, that's okay then it's so. But what does the child learn? What does the young person learn? There's no consequence.You just acted in a way that was completely unacceptable. But oh, that's okay. It's all about you. And so what's happening? Teachers are quitting in droves. Why?Well, in one video you will hear a student say, and this is the thing I love, they brought receipts. Yeah, the students are videotaping the teachers when they lose their mind. But the teachers are starting to record the students.And this one kid says, hey, my mom says I have the right to kick your ass. Can you imagine saying that to a teacher in Luke 6:40?Jesus says, the student is not above the teacher, but everyone who was fully trained will be like their teacher. We should want to be like our teachers and instead we're threatening violence. Some parents refuse to buy their kids school supplies.Well, there's a reason you have to buy them because the school can't. And that's a whole other thing. We should be holding our school boards accountable for what they're doing. But when they can't do what they want to do.My sister in law teaches elementary school and she's constantly putting out money for her class because, well, for whatever reason we got the lottery and all that money was going to come to the schools, but somehow it got lost along the way. And there are parents that are like, I'm not paying for that. You're supposed to pay for it. And if you're not going to pay for it.I'm just going to, let's see, set my. My son or daughter up for failure. And what do they answer with that is, oh, there's a reading epidemic. No, there isn't. There's a parent epidemic.Don't give your kid an iPad. I'm going to say that again. Don't give your kid an iPad, an iPhone. Get them off a screen and put a book in their hand.There are reports after reports they have banned social media in the uk. Why? Because it does horrible things to young people's minds. Yes. Don't give them a screen, give them a book and teach them how to read.The teachers are seen as babysitters and they go, well, you have them for eight hours. No, they don't. They have them from eight to three. And then there's recess and then you got to go to choir or whatever else. The other.You don't have them for eight hours. And, oh, there's another thing. Your kids are really mean because they don't know how to behave.

They.

And they say insanely disrespectful things like, my mom said I could kick your ass to their teachers. Yeah, go do that for, you know, five days a week. And what happens? They lose their mind.One teacher wrote up a student for being high and sleeping in class. And after a while, she just kept writing them up and writing them up and writing them up. And you know what happened?The admin, instead of doing something, just started deleting them. Did they make an example of that student? No, because in the past, I don't know, when I was growing up, there was the bad school.That's where we sent all those kids. And bless the teachers that got the job of teaching in the bad school.But that same student was asked to put away his phone for 10 minutes and eventually said, you are. You are annoying, as Fudge will say to the teacher. I can't imagine saying that to anybody.So that teacher who was trying to educate your children, turned in all our vacation days, all our sick days and never went back because our children can't behave. A high school teacher was punched in the face. Another one had a chair thrown at them and it hit them in the head and they were hospitalized.What's going on in our schools? In fact, one of eight teachers has experienced physical violence. One in eight. And think about this.Because they have videos of teachers who finally freak out. They scream, they yell, and they walk out. They're going to potentially and more likely probably be fired.They're putting their income they're putting their insurance on the line. That means that you have been pushed for a long time. Long time. Because if it's one thing a good teacher has is patience.But when that final wick goes down they're going to blow up just like anybody else. And those are the teachers. Now granted there are always those teachers that need their heads examined but I think that's not the norm.One teacher explained that admins will take the kid out of the class, give them a snack and five minutes later they're back in class. What does that teach a child? Well if I act really bad enough I'll get a snack.One teacher in the seventh grade said students coming into his class were performing at a fourth grade level. It's so crazy. And thanks to screens our children don't know how to be bored. Their imaginations are almost non existent.This is where people always go oh we, we need more programs. Why? Why do we need more programs for kids? Is it they're going to act like maniacs if we don't.When I was, I don't know, 10 to 15, I would ride my bike to my cousin's house. We would sit underneath the biggest tree we could find. Probably climate later we didn't go around breaking the law and being crazy.Now 14 and 15 year old kids who they can't read or write at any level and they don't care and instead of blaming parents, the admins blame what? Covid. Check the calendar kids. Covid was a while ago. And here's the other thing.14 And 15 year old kids aren't stupid if you don't flunk them, if you don't hold them back and anybody can get good grades and you keep giving good grades, you keep passing kids because well the way the school is incentivized they need to show how well their students are doing or they won't get the funding. And so the kids are like well let's see, I could do a bunch of work and get passed or I could do no work and get passed. What would you do?And the teachers are looking for the administration to back them up and there isn't any. So some of us want to blame the parents. They'll say well they're too busy, just spend an hour with their kid after school. Here's a novel idea.Don't have a kid. They take a lot of time and they take a lot of money. But we need to train our children.Psalm 22:6 train a child in the way they should go and they will not depart from it when older, train your children to behave. And now there's no corrections at home. We relied on schools. There's no corrections at school. So who's going to correct your children now? The police.In 2015 in Baltimore, there was a controversial thing. Freddie Gray, who was a black man, he died while in custody of the police.They threw him in the back of a paddy wagon and they picked up some other people, and somehow this guy died. And that's not what I'm here to talk about. What I'm going to talk about is the fact they went, hey, hey, hey. The police are being too strict.So they pulled back on arresting people here. Again, no consequences. What happened? The deadliest July in over 45 years. 45 People were killed in one month. In 31 days, 45 people.And it's just clear to see there, no consequences. And the body count just escalated. Body cam footage, I've somehow went down this rabbit hole. YouTube keeps sending it to me.And all these young adults, not children, young adults are going, I didn't do nothing. I didn't do nothing.And this kid that, that screamed, that had just threatened to go into his house, get a gun and kill all the police in his front yard, and they were there. Why were they there? Oh, for a domestic abuse case.And all this young man had to do was give the cops his now ex girlfriend's phone and it would have been over.But instead of giving up the phone, he argued with them, told them to get off his property, and then basically said, I'm going to go get a gun and kill y'.

All.

Yeah, not a good move. And so as they're cuffing him and wrestling to the ground, because again, he's not going to go quietly. He's screaming, I didn't do nothing.Another college kid I saw took a swing at not one, but two cops, then complained that he got pepper sprayed. He also thought he had done nothing wrong and then later thought an apology would get him off the hook. Why?Because some of these kids have never had any consequences. You reap what you sow. And remember this the next time you hear somebody talking about defunding the police.So we had our parents, we had the school, we had the police. There's another line here. The OGs. That's right. Grandma, the aunties, the neighbors. I remember once, I forget what I said. It might have been sucks.And I was probably seven and my aunt was driving. I was with my aunt and my cousin. We were going someplace and she turned around and she said, you will never Say that word again.And I was like, whoa, she's okay. Must be serious.And all we have to say, and I want to do this because we have a bunch of people riding motorcycles around my neighborhood where the speed limit is 25 and they're doing, I don't know, 50. I would love to catch one of them and go, hey, hey, hey, this is a neighborhood. Bring it down. We don't do that around here.You know, we need to throw that. Hey, we don't do that around here. And here, again, everything's backwards.What used to be a hero is now something, you know, wow, you helped somebody solve the, the crime. You're a hero, you're brave, you stood up. And now people won't turn into bad guys or girls. We've blurred the difference between reality and tv.Remember watching the Jerry Springer show and these crazy people trying to punch each other and throw chairs at each other and you think, well, that's just tv. You know, they're just doing it for tv.Now we see that on a regular basis in Walmart or in a parking lot here where I live in Akron, Ohio, there are a couple parking lots east of or west of downtown that are just turning into areas that are not good. In fact, we'll talk about that in the next one. Have you heard of teen Takeovers?Yeah, but if you think about it, the OGs, why aren't we speaking out to people going, hey, that's, that's not cool. Because of cancel culture.And that's the one that's really kind of painful because the police, the school system, the parents, you know, okay, but this one, if you're part of the, the neighborhood of the community, if you're part of that tribe that's raising that child, you switch that one off yourselves. That's a choice. And so the last thing that could help is the media. And so I brought up the phrase teen takeovers.If you haven't heard about this, they're really bad in Chicago. We had one in Cleveland. And it sounds so fun, doesn't it? Ooh. This Friday we're going to do a teen Takeover. Well, that's interesting. What is it?Well, it's where a bunch of, you know, young kids, high school, college age kids get together on social media and they decide they're going to get together and basically not follow the law. They're going to jump on cars, they're going to, you know, start fires. They might in some cases lead to gunshots.And they're calling it a teen takeover. And when one Happened in New York where two people got shot.The new mayor, Brandon Johnson, said, hey, it's not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities. And then it just so happened that there was a 38% jump in Chicago crime during his month. Yeah, let's not go too hard on the kids.Well, again, take your foot off the pedal. 38% Jump in crime. Ridiculous. And I'm sorry. Teen takeover is too fun. Are you going to the teen takeover? Sounds like a sock hop from the 50s.No, it's a riot. We're going to plan a riot in this neighborhood, take it over, do damage to property and cars and everything else. We're going to ignore the law.It's a riot. Call it what it is. Is that what the news is calling it? No, no. And they're not saying why it's happening. Our children aren't behaving crazy.You reap what you sow, and when you can, you got to push back. And it's not all about raising kids. This week I exercised a bunch. If you didn't know, I like to ride my bike.I get on a bike path and just ride as much as I can. I also managed to eat healthier food. I also got more sleep. And what do you know, I dropped some pounds.Now, if I do the opposite next week and I gain some pounds, whose fault is that? And don't you hate it when the answer is, well, me, I hate that answer. But it's true.If I'm tired all the time, but continue to stay up late and watch reruns of TV I've already seen 5,000 times, whose fault is that? Yeah, that would be me. Again, you reap what you sow. If you think about it, there are two words, right? We said there are two words.One is friend and one is parent. I remember my dad When I was 24, I was finishing up my first degree and I had like half, one and a half semesters left.And he said, hey, I need to talk to you. And I'm like, what? Because me and my dad didn't.

We.

We were, you know, we weren't estranged, but we just didn't know each other that well. He was a long distance truck driver. He's like, hey, like, you know, you're gonna have to move out soon.Which was weird because, you know, it was just me and him. I think my sister was there too. Plenty of room. And I was like, okay. Because I planned on getting an apartment once I graduated.And I said, hey, you Know, can I. Can I graduate first and, you know, get a better job? I was a waiter. Couldn't really afford an apartment on that. I was working part time.And he was like, yeah, but he was just setting the expectation of, like, you're not gonna. Because I was rent free. And he was just letting me know, you know, time to push the little birdie out of the nest. He wanted me to be responsible.And again, there's a difference between a friend and a parent. And there's also two different words. There's knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is having the facts.It's having that information or an understanding about something. That's knowledge. Wisdom is knowing how to use that knowledge well with good judgment and the right timing. And in Proverbs 4.Seven, again, the beginning of wisdom is this. Get wisdom, though it cost all you have. Get understanding. Because as it says, we reap what we sow.If you know somebody who needs to hear this, can you do me a favor, man? It would mean a lot to me. Just go down to your phone and tell them to go over to feedingmyfaith.com the episode is called you reap what you sow.Or if you want to copy the address and send it to them, that would mean a lot to me. And we have a long way to go. And it can be depressing to look at this and see what's happening. But that's the.I think that's the one thing that really, really surprised me is how this just isn't covered on the news. There's a school that LeBron James opened up here in Akron, Ohio, and he's going to help pay for college and all these other great things.And they put some of the worst kids into that school. And it's not working because they're trying to let the kids do whatever they want. And it's not that kids are morons. They're uneducated.There's a difference. And that's what parents and teachers are for if we equip them to do their job.Because in the long run, we need smart people to take over for us and to take care of us. But if we raise a bunch of morons, we're doomed as doom can be. The website again. Feeding my faith dot com.I'm Dave Jackson from the school of podcasting. Take care.

Feeding my faith. God's word is made simple.

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