From Despair to Hope

Posted on Monday, August 1, 2011 by Jane Perkins

   -Ty Denney  August 2011    
 

I sat and watched hundreds of teenagers gather around a cross and pray and cry out that their lives would change and would count for something significant.  I was stunned at the authenticity of their prayers filled with the desire to see their generation affected by God’s love.  Two emotions were battling each other:  one was hope and the other was despair.  Hope that these young people would stand above the prevailing cultural trends calling them to waste their lives on things that don’t count.  Despair that they just wouldn’t make it and this  was just an emotional experience that they would vaguely remember in the years to come.  These were messed up young people, not the ideal candidates to lead a generation into purity, holiness, and radical living.  Things I had heard during the week like, “I have never seen my father,” “I don’t think I can stop smoking weed,” “When I go home I have to go back to jail for stealing a car,” were filling my mind.  These are the type kids that most adults think are hopeless.  Then it hit me.  God hasn’t given up on them, in fact, these are God’s favorites.  The marginalized, the downcast, the hurting – scripture is filled with stories of God transforming the lives of those that no one thought could change.  I have hope.  I have more hope than ever that God has plans that far exceed ours – to raise up a generation of young people filled with Jesus’s love and empowered to live for eternity!  Please take a moment and pray for this generation of teenagers.