Tonight was the third annual Field of Faith event in our community. Field of Faith is an FCA-sponsored event, allowing Christian athletes to bring the gospel to other athletes and students. We alternate the observance yearly between our two local high schools, using their football fields. Our college baseball coach, John Katrosh, has fostered this event, but now our college FCA group has grown to the point that students from our college take the lead. Two students shared their personal testimonies and several other students led with Scripture readings and prayer. It was a wonderful evening with testimonies that pointed clearly to God’s redeeming grace. The Lord was truly glorified with this service.
A couple of things really came to mind as I watched this unfold tonight. The first was what terrible personal pain many of our students experience. This generation, while in many ways so favored with material blessings and other advantages, but yet they hurt so deeply. Many are victims of abuse, neglect, and systematic abandonment by all the significant adults in their lives. Many suffer the negative effects of broken vital relationships. As two precious students told their life stories, my heart broke for them and many of their generation—a generation with so much stuff and yet so little substance. I heard stories of neglect, suicide, hopelessness, self-mutilation, and immorality, all trying to put some meaning in their empty lives and stop the hurting they felt. I also heard the stories of God’s powerful grace of hope and healing springing up to redeem and restore. So sad, so inspiring, so victorious!
Second, I thought about the many people who are giving so much to reach and aid this generation: parents, teachers, coaches, school administrators, youth ministers, Sunday school teachers, caring neighbors, grandparents. I realized again how important it is to give ourselves to this upcoming generation. I also remembered that we must be praying and helping those generational “first responders” who are on the frontlines in this battle for a generation.
So, let’s pray for teens and students we know. Even the most grounded and most committed students face enormous challenges trying to negotiate their way through our deceptive postmodern culture. Secondly, encourage and pray for those adults who are waging spiritual warfare for the very lives of kids. When recent storms left devastation, we have heard people say things like how the area looks like a war zone. This generation looks like a war zone. And no wonder—it is a war zone. Pray for salvation and peace.
“See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.” (Malachi 4:5-6 NIV) --Walter
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I think Dave can share many of those same feelings when he looks at his students. While they are much younger, it seems like that is the age when all that "stuff" starts to begin in their lives. And how sad to know that many of them will never hear the gospel and how it can heal those wounds. But...like you said...many of them will hear it and will overcome in the Lord's glory.
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