Article November 18, 1996 Issue

"Dad, can I have the car keys?"

Jan Kassahn Keeler

Parents of all teenagers, take heart! You are not alone. You don't have to feel overwhelmed. You are not fighting a losing battle. There is a loving Father-Mother God who is shepherding your child—and you.

How can anyone be sure? Let's start with the Bible story of a young man named Eutychus. In the Acts of the Apostles, we read that he was sitting in a window and fell into a deep sleep while Paul was preaching a long sermon (see 20:7–12). Why a window? Some think it was because he didn't want to be at this event—perhaps his parents insisted—and that he chose a seat by the window so that he could at least see what was going on outside. Maybe he would catch a glimpse of a friend whose company he would much prefer. It's likely that he fell asleep because he was uninterested in what Paul was saying. Maybe he had stayed up late the night before. Resistant? Bored? A bit rebellious? Such states of thought may be all too familiar to parents of teens.

Not only did Eutychus fall asleep, though; he actually fell out of the window and was pronounced dead. The account reads, "And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him."

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