Telling Students the Truth About Our Broken World
There was a huge line of students stretching out from the entrance and down the sidewalk. This was a strange sight, as usually students are scrambling to enter in a hurry to make it to their first period class before the bell rings to start the school day. Quickly, my high school daughter and I realized that school administrators were taking extra precaution by having students enter single-file through a metal detector and checking each one’s bag as they walked in. Several sheriff’s deputy vehicles across the parking lot added to heightened sense of alert. This came as no surprise to either of us, though, after the high school had been placed on lockdown for several hours last Thursday following a call to local authorities reporting a student in possession of a handgun.
The events of this past Thursday, coupled with the new reality of my daughter’s day-to-day entry to school, has only reiterated just how scary this world can be for young people. It can be scary for parents as well! Within the reality of this broken world, and with a sober understanding of the dangers found within, how can youth leaders encourage and equip parents to help their kids process these realities?
We Need to Deal with Young People Truthfully
Our impulse often compels us to try and shield young people from the reality of our broken world. Sometimes that impulse can go so far as to lead us to lie or to cushion the truth by offering reassurance that does not comport with the whole truth. Students do not need us to protect them from reality. They need us to help them process it in a biblically accurate way. While I am certainly not saying that parents and student ministry leaders should inundate young people with the unfiltered and gory details of all that is evil in the world, we do need to be truthful with them.
The brokenness of our world is profound. It is painful. It is ugly and frightening. The danger it poses is real. And so is our enemy, who prowls around seeking whom he may devour. We see all throughout the Bible a picture of this reality that doesn’t pull any punches. But along with the painful reality of life under the sun is also found the clear truth of the good news of the gospel, which offers insight into how we help young people process this brokenness. All of creation is groaning; and that groaning is difficult to look at and comprehend sometimes. But it is groaning in anticipation of what is sure to come (cf. Romans 8:18-25). The truth of this broken, sin-sick world is that we will face difficulty, strife, and hurt.
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus has overcome this world, so we can take heart (John 16:33)! It is often in the darkness and ugliness of the reality of sin and its consequences that the reality of the gospel shines the brightest. Only by dealing in the truth of this brokenness with young people can we truly offer the remedy in the gospel. This sort of transparency allows us opportunities to point them to a hope that transcends that brokenness. When we show a willingness to deal in truth when it comes to the bad news, they can be truly confident in our truthfulness in presenting to them the good news. We need to be truthful.
We Need to Point Them to True Safety
If we are completely truthful with young people we must admit to them that we can have no true certainty concerning the future, as much as we wish we could. This is what presses us in faith into Jesus. I cannot offer my daughter assurance that everything in this world will be OK. I cannot promise her that she will live a long and tragedy-free life, because the Bible never promises those things.
What the Scriptures do affirm is that God is good and sovereign. They reveal to us that our days are numbered (Psalm 39:4) and that God knows the number of our days (Psalm 139:16). The Scriptures remind us that the days are evil (Ephesians 5:16) and exhort us to number our days so that we might gain wisdom (Psalm 90:12).
I don’t want to lull young people into a false sense of security by offering them empty assurances concerning the future. I want to urge them to seek refuge in the only place it can be found. The only way I can do this is by clearly pointing them to Jesus. I want to consistently remind them that true safety can only be found in Jesus. Period. My goal in this is not to paralyze them with fear but to mobilize them into him! My desire is that they would know eternal security in him, even while living in a world filled with insecurity.
None of us can know fully why certain things happen within our broken world. But we can be confident that all situations offer the opportunity for us to fix our eyes on the Lord, lean into him by faith, and know him more intimately. For believers, we can have confidence that he is using every situation for our good in conforming us to the image of Christ (cf. Romans 8:28-29). How can we expect to compel students to press deeply into the gospel if we continually attempt to shield them from the harsh realities of a broken world?