We Won’t Waste Our Youth

Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.

Hard to believe that those are the words of a 19-year old, isn’t it? But then again, why is that so hard to believe? Young people are passionate and excitable. It is easy for them to get fired up over things. Why should they not get fired up over serving God?

I’m tired of selling them short. I want to challenge them to be young men and women of God. I want to challenge them like Paul challenged Timothy. I want to challenge them like Jonathan Edwards challenged himself in the resolution above (and the 69 that followed it).

Throughout history, God has used young men and women to turn the world upside-down for Jesus. He used Edwards in the Great Awakening. He used Lottie Moon in China. He used a group of students praying in a field next to a haystack to ignite the modern missions movement. Why can He not do the same thing today? Why are we as adults not expecting Him to do the same thing today?

I do. And I believe that He will.

1 Timothy 1:18-19

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Typical Teenagers

Jonathan Edwards was used by God to spark the First Great Awakening, one of the greatest revivals in history. When he was just 19 years old, he sat down and wrote a list of resolutions.

My family has a tradition of writing down a few resolutions on New Year’s Eve. We place them in envelopes and store them in our big family Bible. Then the next year, we take them out and read them to see how well we did. I have noticed that most of our resolutions are trivial and very rarely do we keep them. Edwards was not like that. His list consisted of 70 resolutions and began with a personal note to, “Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.”

As I read through his list, none of his resolutions are trivial. “Resolved, Never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God, nor be, nor suffer it, if I can possibly avoid it.” “Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.” “Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.” “Resolved, To think much, on all occasions, of my dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.”

Edwards was not your typical teenager. Or was he? Do we sell our young people short? On August 10-14, from 6-8:30 nightly, for the first time ever, Brushfork Baptist Church will be having a Vacation Bible School especially for Youth. We will follow that on August 15, from 5-11PM with our 2nd Annual Back-to-School “Choose” Youth Rally. In preparing for those events, we are remembering to never sell our young people short.

As adults, we need to challenge ourselves to challenge our students. We need to set a resolution to encourage them to do difficult things, to go to difficult places and to reach difficult people. We need to resolve to refuse to let them be satisfied with only a “personal” faith. Instead, we can teach them to boldly live their faith and let Christ pour out of every aspect of their lives. Of course, the best way we can encourage them in those areas is if we model those resolutions ourselves. And if we do, who knows—maybe God will bring us another Great Awakening.

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Ex Libris: Get Outta My Face!

Rick Horne has a great little book on reaching angry, unmotivated teens with biblical counsel called Get Outta My Face! I’ve reviewed it over on Ex Libris.

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The Unspoken Downside to a Large Youth Group

Unidentified youth group returning home Saturday afternoon from YEC 2009.

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