Lately, the topic of "Failure" has been on my mind. In my life, there have been many times when I've seen myself as a failure. Times when I set standards for myself, and in the end, I fail to reach them.
At youth group recently, we have been discussing the idea that "Age Ain't Nothin but A Number" (coined by Pastor Kyle Kingsley). He began the first day by saying that people tend to view those who are young as insignificant, and unwise. They don't give us the credit we deserve because what they see is our failure. They see how our standards seem to be significantly lower than theirs, and they forget that we are the future. No. We are today.
While I'm not a "youth", I am still young, being 21, and so I know this feeling of being overlooked because Im young. And in all honesty, Im totally and completely sick of it. I mean, how many of them do you think have had to deal with the loss of high school friends to suicide, many friends addicted to drugs, or overcoming that, or trying to stay on the straight and narrow while everyone around you is having sex with everything that moves, or drinking until their livers fall our, or shooting up to the point that their skin has built the scar tissue of Superman.
It is difficult in a society like ours to be looked upon with hope. People don't look at us like we are the future. They look at us like we are going to create the slow and painful Deicide believed by some foreign cultures. (Deicide is the killing of God, for those of you who don't know).
Do they look at the good we do for our society? Do they see that we resist the pressures of our culture?
No they see our failure.
1 Timothy 4:12 says " Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example to the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity."
This means that in living our lives, we should be living for God through what we say, what we do, how we love, who we love, and how we show that love.
In essence, we should be living a Godly life for the one who saved our lives and gaves his for us. We need to set the example for people who see us as "just kids", by showing them that we are the future, and the present. We need to show them that, just because we are young, does not mean we are not smart, and it does not mean that we don't know what we are doing.
So remember: "... Set an example to the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity." Because we are called to do so.
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