October 5: A cry to God for our youth

Jeremiah 4:19-6:15

Colossians 1:18-2:7

Psalm 77:1-20

Proverbs 24:23-25

This is a day late.  I don't know why, but yesterday was difficult in so many ways...worry, fatigue, even a tinge of hopelessness.  I could not hear what God might have wanted to say in yesterday's readings.  Today was still somewhat of a struggle, but perhaps at this point it is worth a go.  Where did my worry come from?  From the thought of the country my children were growing up in, and how it seems to have changed since I used to imagine it in my youth, halfway around the world.  Some of those who know me know how troubled I am at how much the country I knew as "the land of opportunity" seems to have changed.  But before I go too far, we should make clear - this reflection isn't about politics, it is about worry and despair.  

Yesterday's verses in some ways did not help.  Our Lord says "Why should I forgive you?  Your children have forsaken me and sworn by gods that are not gods.  I supplied all their needs, yet they committed adultery and thronged to the houses of prostitutes...should I not punish them for this?"  I fear my children are growing up in a world where "they have lied about the Lord; they said 'He will do nothing! No harm will come to us; we will never see sword or famine."

And so I cry out to God for help, to hear me; I stretched out untiring hands and I would not be comforted...I prayed that my children should get to know Him enough to learn to fear Him, to tremble in His presence.  I pray that they learn how "God was pleased to have all fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile Himself to all things..by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross."  That they realize He "has reconciled [them] by Christ's physical body through death, to present [them] holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation", and that they "continue in [their] faith, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel."

"Your ways, God, are holy.  What god is as great as our God?  You are the God who performs miracles; You display Your power among the peoples."  Please keep my children, please keep the youth of our church in your care.  Lead them as You "led your people like a flock, by the hand of Moses and Aaron."