Disney World x 3

Right now we are on the second airplane of the day, and the 12^th total of my kids' lives. This will be their third trip to Disney World at the tender age of 5 and a half. I can't help but wonder about the implications of this on their future. Danny and I both grew up in modest lower-middle class homes in the south where you were lucky to make it to the beach once a year for vacation. We were not given new cars for our 15^th birthdays and we either paid for our own college educations or we worked hard for the scholarships that paid the way. I'm still doing that, as a matter of fact. We look at being able to give our children better than our parents could give us as something to strive for, but was loading up in the Chevelle and heading to Mobile really that terrible of a childhood.

Now, of course, we love our kids and spend quality time with them every day. We strive to place focus on God and family. Note that I'm not addressing the absentee parent or the corporate parent who doesn't have time to be with their children so simply buys their love. This is a different issue altogether. I am speaking only of being spoiled rotten!

My Bible study today came from 2Tim 3:1-7 and focuses on the end days and what our lives will look like. It's sad how much of our culture and even my own household that I see in this passage: "for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…."

By no means am I implying that taking my kids to Disney is creating demons bound for Hell, but I do wonder if I am teaching them to prize things over God, to love the things of the world rather than the things of Heaven. Of course we take our kids to church, pray with them and most fervently pray FOR them but I cannot help but fear for their future today…not only the eternal future, but the hard near future of having to face the real world and realizing that not everyone gets to go see Mickey every year.