About Our Youth

I remember with clarity my first day of Law School receiving some important advice- not to use the skills we learn on argument, communication, and negtoitation on our friends and family or they will cease to be our friends and family.

Unfortunately, I catch my self in the midst of arguments completely disregarding this advise all the time - my instincts take over and I often forget that I'm speaking to a human I love and not merely a "point" to win. 

The Bible tells us to do our piece to keep the peace with all people - and that is especially important with our most precious relationships - our parents, our siblings, our family. These people love us unconditionally, but their words can cut deeper than most.  This fall, let's help our teens form good habits and choose "people over points" and remember that Christ came not to destroy lives, but to save them.

If you've ever worked in an office, you'll probably relate to the experienced frustration of IT personnel minimizing your computer disaster with the simple advice of "reboot your computer." Frustrating, but effective.

God can and does the same thing in our lives if we just trust in Him.  As we see in the lives of Ruth and Naomi, God turns tragedy to honor, rags to riches, and a cursed heritage into a blessing. This month, we hope to encourage our teens to trust God not only in the best of times, but in the worst of times - ESPECIALLY in the worst of times because it is those moments that God uses to set us up for an Ultimate Reset.

Have you heard of the phrase Revertigo?  Its a thing - Google says so.  Its the tendency of a person to revert back to an older version of themselves when around people from their past.  It explains why when we travel back to our hometown for a weekend visit, our maturity declines a couple decades hanging out with old childhood friends.  Or why siblings can laugh until their sides hurt over inside jokes as if they just happened.  And yet, we are in fact grown adults with real responsibilities.  

Sometimes the phenomenon also happens during Lent - we hit the time of year as if it is just a "default" season and revert to whatever we think we ought to be doing or reading or eating (or not eating).  Lent is supposed to be a forward journey, and it is supposed to be new every year.  Christ has something new to teach us every year.  In writing our Lent series, "Follow Me" I was astonished at the artificial roadblocks we put up ourselves to stand in the way of our journey in following Christ - our fears, our pressures, our identity, logic... and yes, our revertigo.  This Lent, let's not be like the Nazarenes who rejected Jesus in His own town, failing to see the Divinity through the Humanity and instead embrace the invitation to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him.