Look Up

In February, my parents were here watching my kids while Kev and I went to San Diego for our anniversary. During one phone conversation with my mom she had mentioned that they wanted to take the kids to the Superstition Springs mall for dinner. She asked me to remind her of the best way to get there from my house. I told her, and then added that the boys would be able to direct them, in case they were having trouble finding it. I've taken the boys to the mall a million times. Surely they knew how to get there. When we got home from our trip, my mom and I were discussing what they had done in our absence when she said something to the effect of, "Your kids have no idea where things are down here." Come to find out, the boys were no help at all in finding the mall, or anything else for that matter.

This morning, as I was driving Tanner to school in my half-asleep stupor, I asked Tanner a question. He didn't pay any attention. He was texting. I asked it again, to which I got the same silent reply. At that moment I started to look around and notice all of the kids walking to school, and I started noticing kids sitting in the passenger seats of their parents cars. Not one kid was looking up.

Not one.

Every kid I observed had their eyes buried in their cell phones. My heart sank a little bit. I finally said to Tanner, "Your missing it."

To which he answered, "Missing what?".

"Everything", I said.

Everything.

(photo courtesy of Google Images)

On most days, I count the cell phone as a blessing. I love that I can get ahold of Tanner, or anyone else, at any time. I love that Tanner texts me during the day, just to say "hi". I love that he and his Grandma L texted back and forth yesterday for nearly 2 hours. I love that I don't have to worry when I drop him off at baseball practice, because I know that he can call me if something happens--good or bad.

But, I also can't help but worry a little bit that it's just another way that Satan uses to remove my child from the present. Another little cunning way to disconnect my child from our family. When Tanner has his phone in hand, he's definitely not "with" us. He's somewhere else, in someone else's conversation.

Ezra Taft Benson said, "In his cunning [Satan] knows where and how to strike. It is in youth when his victims are most vulnerable. … The devil uses many, many tools"

(Ezra Taft Benson, God, Family, Country: Our Three Great Loyalties [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1974], p. 247).

Satan knows exactly what he is doing. It's frightening that he uses something as innocent as a simple cell phone, computer, iPod, etc, to lead people, especially the youth, away. He uses these tools to distract them, to keep their eyes "down"and averted from the things that are most important.

In an April 1970 Conference Address, Sterling Sill said , "Satan has no power over us except as we give it to him. … God never forces us to do right, and Satan has no power to force us to do wrong."

(Sterling W. Sill, in Conference Report, Apr. 1970, pp. 29–30; or Improvement Era, June 1970, p. 45).

As a parent, it is my responsibility to help my children resist the power of Satan. It is my responsibility to do everything in my power to teach my kids to not allow Satan to use every day things to get to them. It is also my responsibility to teach them that they ultimately choose whether to let Satan have that power over them or not.

Who knows when they will be called upon to lead someone in the right direction. Without occasionally "looking up" they will have no idea which direction to point them in. Today I am going to re-commit to continually encourage my kids to "look up", because I certainly don't want them to miss anything.