I recently entered into the 21st century and bought an iPhone. Gasp. I know!  5ish years behind.  Better late than never, right?! (at least that’s what I keep telling myself) Luckily along with my iPhone 4S came a lovely lady named Siri. For those who have yet to meet Siri, let me tell you a bit about her. Siri on the iPhone 4S is every mama’s dream come true – she’s a virtual assistant. Yes.  I did say assistant! Unfortunately she doesn’t do the laundry, change a diaper or clean up after dinner, BUT  Siri does let you use your voice to send texts, schedule meetings (aka playdates), place phone calls, and more. Ask Siri to do things just by talking into your phone. Siri understands what you say, knows what you mean, and even talks back. In short – she is A-MAZING! Just a couple weeks back my hubby and I decided it was time to get to know Siri a bit better.  We started easy by saying “I’m hungry for some french fries.” Within seconds she pulled up 23 local restaurants whose reviews mention french fries. Ok – I’ll take it.  A nice thing to know in case I’m craving french fries one of these days (or pregnancies). Next I said “I’d like to go to church.” Again she responded in a very timely manner with “I found 13 churches…11 of them are fairly close to you.” I was pleased.  Siri seemed to be a dream come true 🙂 After two acceptable answers we were starting to feel pretty confident in my new friend’s abilities, so we asked her a tougher question…“What do I do with my two year old?” She responded “I can’t really say, Steph.” Me neither Siri! After a good laugh I started thinking more about Siri’s answer and this innocent interaction I just had with Ms. Siri.  It made me ask myself “How often do I outsource the dirty work of of parenthood?” All over the country, parents are hiring pros (and/or using Dr. Google) to weigh in on the tasks that make up much of the stress of parenthood.  Siri is a very menial example of this.  And in all honesty, Dr. Google is as well. However, when it comes to some of the more important parts of parenting, like teaching our kids who God is, I can only imagine how easy it can be to entrust the “dirty work”  to the professionals. Although my girls are young (2.5 and 6 mo), I already see how easy it could be to fall into the trap of relying entirely on the church – seminary educated pastors, full-time church employees and energetic (and knowledgeable) youth leaders – when it comes to answering the tough questions that our children will have about faith. If we (the parents) aren’t building faith at home, there is no surprise kids grow up to become youth that don’t really care about devotedly serving others and they certainly don’t care about Jesus. With that in mind, my prayer in these early years of parenting, is that when I’m in need of direction (which is often), that I’ll look to God, who is the ultimate parenting professional. Not Dr. Google.  And certainly not Siri.

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.

– James 1:5