YOUNG AND RESTLESS

Dear teens, I bring you greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. This month I feel inspired to talk to you on a topic I titled “Young and Restless”. The phrase young and restless refers to what youthfulness is all about, vitality, restlessness, always wanting to be active. That is exactly how God wants us to be as teenagers (youths). 

The restlessness in every youth (teen) is place there by God to prepare for our future. It is there for us to learn to be who God wants us to be not to be wasted on trivialities and fleshly activities but to lay that solid foundation for our future. It takes strong vital men to build the foundation of any building so applies to youth. 

We are going to be looking at some youths in the Bible and how they used their restlessness to conquer and build a foundation for themselves. First classic example is the man called David: The last of his father’s children but he was the only one who truly understood what it meant to be young and restless for God. While his siblings were fighting wars for their country, David was busy preparing to be a warrior in the wilderness with God as His tutor. Long before David ever stood against Goliath, he stood before stiffer oppositions in the wilderness with no spectator but God. 

As youths God does not want you to channel your ‘restlessness’ on worldly or fleshly activities like clubbing, womanizing, drunkenness, He wants you to stay in your wilderness and learn what it means to be a champion in Christ Jesus. Don’t try to be the most popular guy or girl in your school or environment, treat your youthful age as your learning stage, and just as you go to school to enhance your mental capacity also spend time to enhance your spiritual capacity. In 1st Sam 17:34-36, we were told how David killed the lion and the bear which came against him in the wilderness. 

As a young boy or girl what lion have you slayed in your wilderness? It may not literarily have to be a lion, it could be lack, sickness, disease, failure in your academics, and how have you learned to conquer those things now. For instance, if you know how not to lack as a youth even with your limited resources now, there is no way you can live in lack when you grow into full adulthood because lack is a familiar foe that you have defeated over and over again as a youth, so it can’t scare you as an adult because you know exactly how to defeat it. That was exactly what David did that made him one of the greatest men to have ever lived in this world. 

Your wilderness is that little place you are now where you deal with only a few people; it might be your school, your place of work even as an apprentice. What you do now with your small beginning will go a long way to determine if your future will be great or small. Learn to walk with God now that you are small and He will take you places you never imagined in your wildest imagination. Be diligent in your relationship with God (Proverbs 22:29). 

Just like David, Joseph also had a similar testimony. God will always take you through your learning process to teach you how to follow Him only then can you succeed and sustain your success when you get to the top. Don’t be interested in getting to the top too fast, follow God’s leading. God can be seen in the nature all around us, slow but powerful. Don’t be in a hurry, build your foundation today and celebrate your future tomorrow. 

God bless you, and have a blissful month ahead.