Do not envy a violent man or choose any of his ways – Proverbs 3:31

In our culture we have a strange way of choosing our heroes, don’t we? We see a lot of anger and hostilities in the professional sports world, and a lot of what happens off the court or off the field gets a free pass for a number of reasons. The athletes have great skills, are wildly popular, and are huge money making enterprises for the owners. In fact, it would be easy to envy the lifestyle many of them lead: fame, fortune, looks, skills. And it seems the more the star plays the “bad boy” image, the more popular he becomes.

Most of my readers will read this and agree with me on what I’ve just written. However, it doesn’t mean much because we’re not in that world or we may just ignore what’s happening. But I’m afraid we have a generation of kids who are not as discerning as we might be. They envy and often imitate their violent sports heros.

Pray for this generation of kids. I know it’s a broad and hard-to-define prayer, but pray that this generation of believing kids will have what it takes to reach those who literally worship the violent athletes and movie stars. I’m afraid kids today have it much worse than we had. Pray that their minds and their eyes will be opened.