Heavenly Father doesn't care about that.

When Max was quite little we had the 'obedience' talk. Actually we had this talk often - with each of the kids. But this time it had a twist.

The talk went like this:

Me: Why do you think it is important to be obedient?

Max: I don't want to be obedient.

Me: Yes but why do you think obedience matters?

Max: So I do what you say.

Me: That's only part of the reason. When you are older you will have to make all your own decisions and the only person you will have to ask is Heavenly Father. What are some of the decisions you will have to make?

Max: What job to have, where to live. (Like I said - we had this discussion more than once.)

Me: (This is the long part of the talk.) Now, while you are young you have parents who Heavenly Father gave to you to look after you and to help you learn to make decisions and to be obedient. If you learn to be obedient to your parents you will learn to be obedient to Heavenly Father then you when you are not much older you will make all your own decisions and you will only have to be obedient to Heavenly Father. There are only a few things that Heavenly Father wants you to do - most things you can choose for yourself. But while you are young you need to practice being obedient so it is easy to be obedient to Heavenly Father.

Max: When I am a grown up I am so going rock climbing - Heavenly Father doesn't care about that.

Since then we have often said 'Heavenly Father doesn't care about that.' Or 'This is something we need to do because Heavenly Father wants us to do it - and we can go rock climbing too.'

Because being obedient to Heavenly Father leaves us plenty of time to do other things but being obedient to the any clamouring voices of the world leaves us very little free time.