Focusing On Youth

Recently I have been involved in a great Jr. High youth program at riverside community church. I love my role in helping them engage in experiencing God through selfless worship. Singing, praising, and worshiping God are quite possibly the most humbling thing mankind can do, if done properly, in my opinion. Anyway after worship was over I sat in the back with my pen and journal out ready to observe. The topic discussed was, you guessed it, love. How appropriate considering the date. In fact, this whole month is "love month." Now, I usually like to add ice breakers in my blogs, funny instances that come from my experiences but for this one I have none. This time I sat in anger realizing the truth of today and the task that is at hand.
  Sixth, seventh, and eighth graders filled the room with their full undivided attention located to the front of the room. Issues such as, sex, early pregnancy, STD's, pornography, homosexuality, abortion, and divorce were spoken to them. My anger was at its apex, not because these issues were addressed but because they HAVE to be addressed.
  It seems to me that the enemy has realized the importance of focusing on, persuading, and guiding our youth. You look at influential people such as Hitler who also capitalized on the opportunity of speaking and directing the youth of that time. It doesn't take a devil or a world leader to know that the youth of today are what make up the world of tomorrow. Since we all know this very logical truth why do we dance around with our hands on our heads wondering why our world is the way it is. Maybe, just maybe we need to pour more into our youth. Pour our energy, our quality, our time, our diligence, our power, our voice, our lives into our youth. I sat in a room where these harsh issues were being addressed and not one, not one batted an eye... no one was shocked, they have heard it all before. THESE THINGS ARE NORMAL TO THEM.
  It is imperative that we act on this, that we fight against it. It is life altering whether we decide to act. For the sake of them, for the sake of tomorrow. The world is pushing on what seems to them to be a very enticing lifestyle. They are blindly being led down a path of destruction, destruction of themselves, of others, of their planet, and so on. It is about time to make it our goal to help them. Focus, FOCUS on our youth.