By Pastor Susan Tang
 YOUNG people today are growing up in a different environment from the one we older people grew up in. In the past, we were encouraged to study well and get good results but today, in this age of super technology and globalisation, the young are challenged not only to study, but also ‘to explore new ways and new things, to be creative and innovative and to achieve not only excellence but also greatness.’ They are challenged to “break the norm” and to possess a passion to compete relentlessly so that they can be “better than the rest.’
What do you think will happen to all these youths when they are pushed and challenged to such limits, especially when they lack spiritual fortitude and a sound value system? How can our young people achieve the best when they are not taught to honour God and to value human dignity but only to “break the norm” so that they can achieve greatness and be one cut above the others?
It is no wonder than that pandemonium reigns and their minds break down! The New Straits Times (NST 18 September, 2004) carried this disturbing headline: ‘’MENTAL ILLNESS AMONG TEENAGERS ON THE RISE.” The newspaper reported, “One in five Malaysian teenagers suffers from some form of mental illness and the figure is rising. If these children and adolescents don’t get help, we are going to be burdened with a generation suffering from serious mental health problems.”
This is truly frightening… is anyone listening out there? What a terrible prophecy of doom over this nation. On top of this, we are told that there are two new drug addicts every hour. There are now more than half a million drug addicts in the country with 47 new addicts added daily. Multiply this by 365 days! This is why senior citizens must rise to pray and break this curse over our young people. They are truly a ‘battered’ generation.
Another headline in The New Straits Times (Oct 12, 2004) reads: “THIRTY MILLION YOUTHS IN CHINA SUFFER FROM MENTAL ILLNESS.” The article says: “At least 30 million Chinese youths under 17 years of age are suffering from mental or behavioural problems and the trend is set to rise.”
The advent of globalisation (with its demonic global trends) has exposed young and impressionable minds today to not only all sorts of abnormal temptations and filth from the media but also to direct attacks from demons. Filth and smut flow too freely through the media. The call for young people to be innovative and creative or the call for them to “venture into uncharted waters and test the unknown’ is too great a temptation to resist.
Only the worst, not the best can happen when youths who have no fear of God or a sound value system are told, “There is no limit, no boundaries, just go ahead and be creative: be innovative and break the norm! Strive to beat down everyone else so that you can be the best.” This constant pressure for them to perform, to compete, to be ‘one cut above the rest’ will be heeded because young people do not want to be irrelevant. They will cave in to the call of the secular world, to peer pressure and try to catch up with the maddening crowd.
Young people today are indeed living not only under mental stress; they are also experiencing direct assaults from evil spirits. They desperately need the prayers of their families, especially their parents, grandparents or elderly mentors. Many behave irresponsibly and are incorrigible in their repugnant behaviour because they are under bondage. Added to all their problems are the negative reactions of the older generation, who often judge, criticise, complain, scold, call them names and even curse them. But they do not pray for them.
What then should their elders (be they parents, mentors, grandparents) do? Shouldn’t they seek God on their behalf? Shouldn’t they, the elderly or the aged, who have plenty of time on their hands, pray for them? If we have not prayed, blessed nor ministered to them, then surely we have no right to criticise and judge them.
Unfortunately, we are living in days when most elderly people also do not know how to pray and do not want to pray. They can attend church, seminars, symposiums, go for mission trips, etc but they just do not want to pray. One hour of prevailing in God’s presence is like being in a torture chamber. – they sigh, they fidget, they look around, and they fall asleep! How to be pitied indeed is this generation of young people. They have parents and grandparents who are able to give them everything and anything but do not pray for them, do not set them free from invaded minds and do not impart to them the knowledge of God.
O that God will bring back the elderly Isaacs who will lay hands on their sons to bless them, the aged Jacobs who will rise up and prophesy over them and the ageing Davids who will charge their sons to remain faithful to their God.
God will not work deeper into the lives of our children, our grandchildren when we do not minister to them . We minister to them by prayers, by prophecy, by direct counseling, by charging them to keep God’s Word and by spending time with them. As a pastor, an itinerant minister, a writer and an administrator and teacher of SOL, I definitely do not have the time for all the young people in my church. However, I do find time to pray for the youths in my nation and to impact into the lives of the few whom I discern bear the call of God upon their lives.
But what about you? If you are retired, do not just spend your time in golfing, rearing birds, swimming, going on vacation after vacation, gardening, watching TV, going for tea two or three times a day and just sitting and talking and murmuring. Spend time to do things that have eternal worth.
Do not allow the spirit of prayerlessness to bind you – it will, if you allow it to. There is nothing sadder that to see an aged man or woman who does not know how to connect with God. Learn to sit quietly in His presence with uplifted hands and a spirit of gratitude for an hour, at least twice a day.– Taken from Breakthrough at Sunset by Susan Tang. Used with permission.
|
