Scales in our eyes…

“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” John 8:32 What is the truth? Every single one of us has a truth that we hold on to, this is what we have being raised to believe from the moment that we are born and start learning. We are all born into different cultures and religion, its usually a case of ‘this is my family’s religion, and so I have to stay in it and preserve it, because you were born into it.’ Thats really not a problem because when we are young, we are under the control of our parents, they are the ones who are ‘over’ us  until we reach the age of accountability.

The muslims preserve their religion and follow it, their children go for madrassa and learn the Quran from a very early age, that is why to convert a muslim into christianity, is usually very hard, unless the HolySpirit of God comes and reveals Himself to them. The same for a Hindu and all other religions that are out there in the world! What of Christians? have we followed Gods command in how we ought to teach our children about Him? Deuteronomy 6:6-9 says “These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframe of your houses and on your gates.” Have we impressed God’s commandments onto our children as we ought to? if not why? I’d say the main reason is; we ourselves haven’t followed God’s commandments, how would we push them onto our children?

We now have young people growing up without the fear of God, without any morals and when they do things, we start asking where the problem is, yet we could have solved some of these issues when the child was still young. Its reached a place that parents are passing on the responsibility of raising their children onto teachers and pastors, its no longer their concern! They too busy working and looking for money that they hardly take notice that their children are struggling with life issues. Young men and women are growing up already wounded, confused and they are looking for answers, that is why they are getting into drugs and substance abuse, depression has become part of almost every family.

Getting a young person to come to Christ is not a walk in the park, some will even tell you that if salvation is what he sees in the house with parents who don’t care, then they don’t want any salvation at all. Others be like, am too young to get saved, isn’t salvation for the old and grew? If I get saved I wouldn’t be able to have as much fun as I want to, after all salvation is boring! I have spoken to many young people trying to get them to get saved, but its usually the same answers all over again, they are so blinded in this so called ‘freedom and fun’ of theirs that you wonder if they will ever wake up from their slumber. The morals and values have gone out the window, respect is no longer with us! At times I look back at the way I was raised and how discipline was something that was paramount, but now it just doesn’t exist. So where exactly is the problem? who is supposed to instill all these morals into the lives of these children, yet their parents seem to have given up? To be honest, some parents don’t even try to do it, they just send the kid to school and let the teachers handle them; forgetting that teachers cannot take up the role of a parent! Slowly by slowly, we are seeing the older generation has given up on the young, citing they are a gone case!

We need to remove the scales from our eyes, we need to ask ourselves, where did we go wrong? what did we miss! This generation needs to be understood more than anything else. Saul was a man who persecuted Christians, until He met Jesus, he couldn’t see and was taken to Ananias who prayed for him and “Immediately something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. Acts 9 from verse one all through to 19 speaks of this amazing conversation of Saul, who was used by God in a mighty way.

I look at my generation and I know that God hasn’t given up on them. They are people who can be responsible people in the society, if someone holds their hand and shows them the way. This post isn’t to condemn the young, but rather a wake up call for the parents to realize that their children need them, they are screaming for help in so many ways but we think they just being all dramatic and rebellious.

God wants the best for all of us, He loves us so much, He doesn’t want to see any of us walking around wounded from the pain that life has brought us. God loves us so much that He died for all of us, not just the old, but the young too. How He lived His life is the same way that He wants us to be, to be our brothers keeper, to be servants who will serve with humility and love.

May the scales fall from our eyes that we may see things for what they truly are, to look at our children and love them, to sit down and just talk to them and get to know how their day has being, the challenges they facing! to be their friends, as well as their parents, teaching them what is right and what is wrong. There is hope, we can’t give up now; our children need us! this generation needs us!