During prayer today a lament erupted in my heart. I cried out, “God save the children. Send a revival of hope, joy, and love into the hearts of the young. Jesus, come.”
I had been praying by name for my friend’s children who have wandered from faith in Jesus. The list was way too long. Researchers and polls confirm that there has been a mighty exodus of the young from evangelical churches. This exodus has broken the hearts of many Christian parents and left them asking what they did wrong or should have done differently.
Although I think there is no single answer or solution, I do think doing spiritual warfare with both hands helps. Evangelical churches often present the Christian faith in therapeutic terms—a relationship with God that will fix everything. At times I saw this in my sons when they complained, “I prayed but it didn’t work.” Sometimes “prayed” was replaced with “obeyed.” They had heard the standard good testimony of those who obeyed and prayed, and then saw God move in wonderful ways.
Sometimes these “good testimonies” come from celebrity Christians who have seen amazing success as athletes or musicians. When following Jesus doesn’t bring the same kind of success, many young people wander away. Some who stay, stay miserable, doubting God’s love and feeling unworthy of God’s help. They “tried God and discovered He doesn’t work.”
All this is the result of one-handed spiritual warfare that only emphasizes the blessings of faith. The left-hand of spiritual warfare is realism and honesty our lives. The left hand is the honesty and endurance of Job when everything goes wrong, when God is silent, and friendship with God has disappeared. The left hand is the cry of the Psalmists, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me? How long will you hide your face from me?” Or “Why do you stand far off, O Lord? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?”
We see this one-two punch again and again in the Psalms. The Psalm that begins with honesty about God’s absence, ends:
But I have trusted in They lovingkindness; My heart shall rejoice in Thy salvation. I will sing to the Lord because He has dealt bountifully with me.(Psalm 13:5-6)
Too often we have built a faith only on the last part of these Psalms; a faith that says nothing about the strength of our enemies, the depth of our grief, or the absence of God in our time of trouble.
More youth pastors need to tell the story of Job. Unfortunately, the church often plays the role of Job’s friends and leaves kids wondering what they have done wrong to miss out on the success others have. And of course, there are enough defiling things in our culture for teens to blame themselves for their failure to walk in joy and triumph all the time. Living in condemnation is exhausting and joyless. Despite the proclamation of salvation by grace from the pulpit, many young people live in condemnation, believing Job’s friends and hating themselves.
Some might think Job and the Psalmists are too “old covenant” to be relevant. We should, however, consider the context of Paul’s mention of weapons of righteousness for the right hand and the left in II Corinthians 6: –10. The whole epistle rests upon the paradox of God’s power perfected in weakness. In chapter six, Paul describes his ministry as including afflictions, hardships, tumults, labors, distress, sleeplessness, hunger, dishonor, sorrow, and poverty. But it also includes purity, kindness, patience, the Holy Spirit, truth, and the power of God. In chapter seven he says that in Macedonia he was “afflicted on every side; conflicts without, fears within” (v. 6). Paul is honest about his afflictions and his fears.
As a teacher, I found young people open to a faith that is honest about the struggle to believe. Honesty adds power and reality to our testimony that “I know that my Redeemer lives.” Honesty about not always experiencing the warm embrace of God makes the decision to praise God heroic and noble—not a way to manipulate God.
Leaving behind the “good testimony” narrative and transactional relationship with God is liberating. We can stop keeping a record of what we did for God and what God must now do for us. I think many young people are hungry for costly discipleship that takes up the cross. In this age of the “selfie”, leaving self behind sets us free to focus on Jesus and those who need His love. The cure for self-love and self-loathing is self-forgetfulness.
Endurance in the face of hardship, unanswered prayers, and a hostile culture is not popular and doesn’t sell well. Faithful perseverance is the most powerful weapon we have against all the scandal and betrayal in the church. In all the shifting sands of our culture, those who remain faithful are a rock of hope and truth. We need to value faithfulness and humility in leaders more than gifting and charisma.
Fighting with both hands means having the testimony of those thrown into the fiery furnace:
“Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O King, but if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image you have set up.” (Daniel 3:17-18)
We must embrace both the testimony of deliverance and the testimony of faithfulness in the fire.
God works—but not for us. In both hardship and deliverance, endurance and miracle, God is working to make us like his Son, Jesus who prayed, “Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me, yet not My will, but Thine be done” (Luke 22:42).
