Pushing Past Apathy

We finished up this week in Biblical Principles class a unit called "A Life of Meaning, Purpose, and Service". It comes at an interesting time for seniors. We are far enough past 'spring break' that they are counting the days left in 'teens'- the sun is out, the flowers are in bloom, and they will lose enormous amounts of energy for work in the few days ahead.

Class will become somewhat of a torture chamber and I will be figuratively beating dead bodies in mere days.

This was one more good last shot at trying to push them out of the lull that permeates the post-modern world of personal peace and affluence.

My greatest frustration with the current crop of teens (and there will always be frustrations- them with me and I with them) is the 'casualness' that robs their zeal for living. Sometimes it is seen in "I'm too cool to care" or worse "I'm callous and do not want to feel inwardly at all".

I am not an emotional or flamboyant teacher- I wake up some mornings this time of year and pray, "Lord, make me interesting today" to no avail. (That is why I am definitely a believer in differentiated teaching techniques).

But we all have to WAKE UP. Our post-modern carnage has left us fractured from no consensus- shallow from endless sound bites and sloganeering (please- no more snappy mission statements)- disillusioned from no appeal to truth, and fatigued from microwave, fast paced activities, but no form to support the pressure.

My message is that it is never too late. A great joy it is to say, "I'm tired of this world and I will now worship God is spirit and truth. I will trust Christ alone for salvation and serve him. I serve him by loving others. I love others by serving them."

The great thing is that it doesn't mean we have to live in monasteries. We live in the world He created, we enjoy all of life as He intended, we have the most freedom with the least regret. And we have no fear because of Christ's love.

My goal is to work, and pray, and even fast for this type of revival among our young people and in the church.

Classic NFL films show a coach giving a famous half time speech "You men can do it- you can do it- you can do it, but what's more.... YOU HAVE TO DO IT"

That is my message- when you see the past civilizations who have tried other world views and philosophies to support a culture, they always crumble and fall. Only the Christian consensus can hold us together. It is literally... turn or burn.

No need to fear- the remnant is always cared for. Cling to the cross regardless, but Oh Lord... for our children's sake- Let us see revival again"

"...it has become abundantly clear in the second half of the twentieth century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself. Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, his own vulnerability out of his own strength; himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, in a process of auto-genocide, convincing himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be an easier prey for his enemies; until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keels over a weary, battered old brontosaurus and becomes extinct.”

- Malcolm Muggeridge, Seeing Through the Eye: Malcolm Muggeridge on Faith