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DON’T BE A LAB RAT: GET YOUR REST!

     This one goes out to the teens in the house!

     During my teaching years, I watched over the course of time as the teens under my charge either started arriving to class with coffee, or would be sleeping in class following late night sessions with their video games or some other ‘clicky-clicky’ device. In either case, students expected me—as their teacher—to feel ‘sorry’ for them and let them sleep through the lesson of the day. They found out the hard way that I had little sympathy for their plight as I insisted that they stay reasonable awake—or they could sleep in the Principal’s Office, with the appropriate disciplinary paperwork with my signature.

     Real life has little sympathy for those young people who can’t keep their eyes open.

     Now—as then—schools started adjusting their schedules to later times for students to arrive. Of course, this was the ‘coward’s’ approach. Instead of the School Board showing some backbone, they decided to use the sleeping students as ‘lab rats’ in the hope that the adults in charge of the local education establishment would be ‘more liked’ by the students, rather than preparing them for the real world.

     Students: Get your rest! It will pay off in a big way, along the road of life. College students have found out after those first few ‘all-nighters’ that caffeine does not replace sleep. If you didn’t take the time to study throughout the term, staying up all night before a major exam didn’t help your grade one bit. In fact, you would have done better if your would have followed your teacher’s advice and studied throughout the term prior TO the exam, rather than ‘cramming’ the night before.

     Again, real life has little sympathy for those young people who can’t keep their eyes open.

     Over the years, I have noticed that far too many students have become more obsessed with two things: pleasure and money. Immediate gratification in the form of social media ‘likes’, or getting a high score on a video console through the Internet has become a pleasure obsession for far too many teens. Sadly, too many parents lack the will to take their electronic devices FROM their kids, as they too have been hooked on ‘electronic crack’. Then, on the monetary front, a work permit in order for teens to earn their own money during their academic careers has turned into another snare. Students start off ‘happy’ to be offered unlimited hours to make money…only to find out (oftentimes too late) that their employer ‘used’ them to serve the needs of the company for the short term.

     Why not the LONG term? Easy answer. Because the teen was still IN school and had not graduated.

     Satan loves to use teens as suckers and lab rats. Holding a piece of pre-selected cheese in front of them to get them to focus on his treadmill. The devil has more than 6,000 years of experience in studying the ways of young people. He knows what works, and what doesn’t—even among Christian teens! The solution is obvious, but isn’t very practical in the present—according to some. Get your rest, young person. Life is far too short to miss ANY of it for pleasure, money or the desire to ‘get rich quick’ by taking late night street course in how to live a life of crime. Unfortunately, staying up late at night to commit crime is another reason why teens seem unable to keep their eyes open in school—they spend their sleeping hours trying to rob, rape and pillage the countryside to ‘please’ their little gangbanger buddies. Proverbs 1:10 (KJV) applies at this juncture…NEVER let someone talk you into something that you will regret in the short OR long term.

     Parents, its high time that you put your foot down, and make your kids go to bed each and every night on time. Yeah, they will cry, fuss and whine. Remember: THEY are the child, and YOU are the parent. In the words of Pastor John Hagee: “IF they can train a dolphin to bounce a basketball at Sea World, parents, YOU can train your child to follow your rules at home!”

     Let me close with this: If more parents would do their jobs at THEIR house, there would be fewer problems (and fight videos) at the school house. Teens: Don’t be a lab rat for Satan. Jesus Christ wants to use you, and you have to be awake to learn the lessons He has for you!

     Mike Ramey is a Retired Minister, KJV Bible Teacher, syndicated columnist and Bible Prophecy Specialist who lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.  “The Quick Scan” is one of a variety of his columns appearing and abounding in print and cyberspace, written from a biblical, business, and common-sense perspective since 1996.  Catch Mike Ramey’s columns on X (Twitter), Substack, Faithwriters.com, LinkedIn and in fine publications like this one!  To drop him a line—or a whine—the address is still the same: mgmikeramey@yahoo.com.  ©2025 Barnstorm Communications International.