Teenagers are amazing. They are incredibly insightful, overloaded with energy and untapped potential that is seemingly inexhaustible. Teenagers are truth-seekers, they weigh your words and actions down to the micro-gram, look straight through your mask to see if there is more than one face in there and can feel the genuineness of your heart from 50 paces. All this is true and just the tip of the iceberg. There is no ‘but’ coming. I have raised three teenagers and preached to others for years. All of us would do well to get to know each and every one of them around us. Why? Because they are like heat-seeking missiles. Programmed, searching and adjusting to the environment as they speed towards what they truly desire—A Rock to build their lives on. A place to really belong. Something worthwhile to invest their lives in. If our young people scatter to the winds, into things that are wasteful, make sure they have seen the best of what the Lord’s church can offer, first. They don’t need gimmicks. That is what the world has on-tap. They need to see in us truth and integrity. They want to see in us inclusion and respect. And they have to see in us a sense of ‘all this is worth it!’ If a baby is born today, by the time that child reaches nineteen I will be an old man. Which tells me I don’t have time to waste. I only have time to pray for and encourage those coming after me. Everything about youth is strong: passions, desires, feelings, opinions and physical frames. We can learn so much from them. At the risk of sounding hypocritical, if an angel tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I wanted to be a teenager again, I would say, ‘yes, but only because I get my youthful body back.’ Youth is for the young. They don’t want me to act like one. What they really want is for you and me to have built our lives on The Rock—Jesus Christ, so they can see how to do it, too.
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