The above link was shared by a friend
on Facebook. It is all about how the younger generations are deluded
narcissists. They have everything handed to them and everything in
their lives are constructed to communicate how awesome they are. I
remember as a tutor in both high school and college settings, I would see
students making passing grades, but they could not even perform or
articulate the fundamentals of a subject. I saw college students who
couldn't read or do simple division but somehow graduated. In the article above, the author
mentions Facebook where anything negative can be edited, blocked,
ignored or otherwise ejected from life. Video games allow us to feel
the high of (false) accomplishment, and reality TV show us “ordinary”
people living extraordinary lives. All of this creates the idea that life is about us and that we are
better/greater/smarter than we really are. Younger generations are
being brought up separated from the reality of the inherent
unfairness and hardships of life.
As a youth pastor, this is troubling
for me on several fronts. Not only does such a delusion create
negative effects that will ripple through society for many years to
come, but a people convinced of their own (supposedly) inherent
goodness are blinded to their own brokenness and need for a Savior.
On a purely psychological side of
things, we have students who are being taught on every front that
life is about them and that the point of life is happiness and
pleasure. When this view of the world collides with reality, we get
depression, anxiety, and fear that manifests itself is a myriad of
ways from cutting to drugs to bitterness to bullying and many much
more tragic behaviors. And popular culture's answer to these things
is a need for more self-esteem. And so further down the spiral we go.
Doubly frustrating for someone trying
to minister to teenagers is the fact that its not just the secular
media giving them this idea. Even much of Christian music and
teaching, though well intended, seems to focus on the love of God
without giving much, if any, mention to the brokenness and sinfulness
of people. So as I am trying to teach the bible and communicate the
Gospel, I am being undermined, not only by secular influences, but
also other supposed Christian “authorities”. So that even the
“good christian” kids who are actually trying to follow after
Jesus, have this bombardment of YOU-centered ideas.
I can communicate to my students that
Jesus died in order to glorify God. That His mercy and love and grace
could be shown. But then they turn on the radio and hear that he
“thought of me, above all” or other songs that focus and center
on US instead of God. Or Djs that constantly pour forth syrupy sweet
platitudes about how wonderful you are and how much God loves you.
Yes, He loves us, but that's because He's God. That's who He is. Not
because we are so wonderful.
The most tragic part of this is that,
as the bible says, “God opposes the proud and gives grace to the
humble.” (James 4:6) Pride is essentially that frame of mind that
builds us up in our own thinking and makes more of us than we really
are. To believe such a thing is to build your life on a lie. Like the
foolish man who build his house on the sand (Matthew 7) the foundation of your
own greatness WILL wear and erode away by life and reality. It may
happen slowly over time or in one tragic event, but eventually you
are left alone and broken with nothing to rely on, to shelter you
from the storms of life, because you put your hope in your own
goodness, and that just wasn't enough to get the job done.
The truth, what the bible teaches, is
that we are broken, we are corrupt, we are fallen and sinful. Dirty
and hopelessly wicked before the awesome and eternal holiness and
righteousness of God, who created us. But that brokenness and
sinfulness can m=be “fixed”. We can be healed. We can be
reconciled and made whole, but ONLY through the forgiveness and grace
paid for by Jesus on the cross and the new life extended to us
through the resurrection.
Ephesians 2:8, “It is by grace that
you have been saved through faith.”
That faith is expressed in repentance,
a turning away of our sin and our old way of thinking and living. We
turn from all the junk the world's way of thinking has taught us and
we run after God and His way of life.
Here is the real tragedy in the
self-centered, “I'm so awesome” mentality that pervades the
younger generations: A person who believes they are so great and
that life is about them and their happiness will not repent of sins
that they do not believe they have in order to receive forgiveness
that they do not believe they need from a God that they believe just
wants to take the fun out a life that they mistaken believe is all
about them.
Not only have we created a culture that
says life is about being happy and feeling good, but we have created
a society built on the idea that we should not only feel good, but
that we should view ourselves as inherently good, and anything that
says otherwise is evil.
In such an environment and with such a
view of the world, God's grace is either ignored as unnecessary or
accepted as given. After all, “why wouldn't He love me? I'm
awesome!”
And even if multitudes of Americans are
able to medicate and numb away the pain of living in a broken world
with a broken heart and live a moderately “happy” life, I fear
that they will only have accomplished feeling good about themselves
as they merrily skip down the broad road that leads to ultimate and
final separation from God.
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