Feel It For Yourself

I need accountability. For the disciplined person I am, I still need someone to keep me accountable. Therefore when I started working out at the gym I contracted a trainer who meets with me three times a week.

During our workouts at first the trainer will show me how an exercise is done then I will try and copy it with their steadying hand and then I am left on my own and they encourage me repeatedly to "feel it for myself".

This reminds me of two of my son in laws. Both of them sought God for themselves when they were teenagers. Their parents didn't attend a house of worship but they felt it for themselves and built lives as young men surrounded by a church body.

I listen to my girls speak of their relationship with Jesus. They had no choice - they had to attend worship services, youth group and any other project the church had going while they lived at home. But as adults they feel it for themselves.

I have watched families raise children in the church for the last twenty five years. Parents rely on the scripture, "train up a child in the way..." and sometimes end up thoroughly disappointed.

What can the church do to show an "exercise" to our young people, steady them as they try it for themselves and then sit back and keep from rescuing them as they learn to feel it for themselves? It is more than scheduling enough activities which exhaust teenagers. It is more than standing before them and telling them what they shouldn't do to keep themselves pure.

It involves someone who loves the Lord and lives victoriously through thick and thin and truly believes the next generation can also. It involves someone patient enough to wade in sticky discussions about what is practical and what the Word says and also realizes they are not mutually exclusive. It is someone who will sit in a circle and ask more questions than have answers.

Our young people have got to feel it for themselves.