"Ferris Bueller's Day Off" Is More Difficult Now

It would be much more difficult for Ferris Bueller to have a day off now than it was in 1986 when the movie, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, was made. Do you remember how high school student Ferris tricked his parents into believing that he was sick, then he went out for a fun day of driving around Chicago with his buddy and his girlfriend?

According to USA Today it would be nearly impossible for Ferris to pull that off in 2006. Many cities have passed daytime curfew laws, so the cops would stop Ferris if he were on the street during school hours. New provisional driver’s licenses forbid teenagers from having other teenagers in their cars. Mom and Dad now have a global-positioning device installed in Ferris’ cell phone so that they can pinpoint his location on a map on their own cell phones.

Ferris also used the occasion of his day off to hack into the school’s computer to change his grades and attendance record. Now Mom and Dad can examine all of Ferris’ typing with software that let’s them monitor the home PC from their monitor at work.

Yes, it’s a new day. If you’re a parent you understand the desire to have more control over your child’s whereabouts. If you’re a teenager you probably don’t have much appreciation for the new technology and legislation.

No matter your age or generation the reality is that your Heavenly Father has always been monitoring your location, behavior and decisions 24/7. You’ve never even had a thought that God didn’t know about. Cheating, gossip, lust, illicit acts, unforgiveness, punitive behavior, stinginess, hate, prejudice, and much more have been seen and acknowledged by God. The human heart is desperately wicked and fallen.

Did you just do a double take on my use of the word “wicked”? In our relativistic world we’ve relegated wickedness to mass murderers and terrorists. But, the Bible makes it clear that we don’t compare our lives to others in this world. We compare our lives to the life of Jesus.

What we all deserve is judgment and condemnation from God. But, the grace and mercy of God provides forgiveness, redemption and transformation. That’s worth going to church and celebrating this Sunday!