To Whom Does Your Soul Belong?
By Rev. Dave Roberts.+
One of the tougher things people seem
to go through in life is that of trying to
find out who they are. This lack of an
identity starts showing up usually by
high school as kids tend to flock around
those of a similar feather. That might be
OK in the aviary world and it is normal
for humans to want to do the same
because, for us, it is a need to be included
and accepted. Sometimes sanguinary
belonging is not enough.
Sadly, at times it looks like a larger variety
of musical chairs in which kids are
wandering around their school looking
to see if there are any slots where they
can suddenly seat themselves and feel
like one of the gang. What is more
unfortunate these days is that there
seems to be a sharp increase in high
school bullying and mean girls. And I do
mean mean! I don’t remember a time
when there were so many teen suicides
being reported as there are now. I don’t
even believe that “it was always there,
just not reported,” but that there really
are more of them happening now
because we are reaping the harvest of
the grandchildren of those Dr. Spock
baby-boomers who lacked good discipline
and boundaries. Their generation’s
kids were spoiled, drugged and
raised in a time since the pill, and now
their kids are yet more distant from the
moral moorings that make for a decent
society.
I didn’t expect to still be pastoring at 67.
I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing at this
age but I knew I didn’t (and still don’t)
plan to retire; I would probably just
have imagined having a different kind
of ministry. Well, OK, I have a variety of
ministries going on in the course of a
month but one of them is certainly pastoring
and many of those whom I pastor
either locally or long distance are a
very different breed of people.
At the risk of sounding like a retiree
who sits on his porch barking at kids
and dogs as they trespass on the lawn, I
have to say that these last couple of generations
have a lot more people involved
in things that may include violence,
cruelty and social aberrations than I
could have imagined even ten years ago.
But one thing has not changed: People
are looking to belong, especially those
in their teens and early twenties.
When I was in high school, kids would
group according to common interests.
There were the jocks who always travelled
in packs, the Jewish princesses
(more than half our high school class
was Jewish) who were always getting the
highest grades in the college course, the
blue collar guys, the secretarial pool of
girls from the business course, and then
those who were less competitive who
often hung out in smaller groups of two
or four because they had a few things in
common: They were eccentric, brainy, a
bit nerdy and were always the last ones
to get picked for any team in gym class.
We gravitated according to our interests
or abilities and then there were always
the loners who glided in and out of high
school classes and hallways and never
said much.
As our generation got older, most of us
married, had kids and by the time we
were in our forties, we had found our
identities in the ways our parents had:
Women found their value in their family
and children and men in their work
and hobbies. And the lines could blur
somewhat too because some women are
gifted in their hobbies and some men
live to see their kids have it better than
they did. It sounds archaic now, writing
this, but that’s a lot of how it was.
When I went to our 40th high school
reunion, I saw all these “kids” who
looked like my parents. And I was one of
them. Next year we’ll have our 50th
reunion and I wonder if we’ll all look
like my grandparents!
The kids these days, however, are finding
themselves in a real bind because
they are almost fighting to appear to
identify and belong somewhere. This
has given rise to actual “gangs,” not
groups, and kids often force themselves
to take on a persona that is not theirs
because, for one thing, they don’t know
who they are. But they’ve got to be
something. This is the musical chair
syndrome I mentioned above. They need
to connect with a certain group and
embark on a search according to how
they dress and talk. A really sweet girl,
who may be a genuine person and just
looking for a level of camaraderie, will
be marked for terrible abuse by a group
of mean girls who just enjoy the sadism
of it all. In some cases, as we’ve seen in
the past year, it’s led to suicide. So sad.
For the past twenty years it’s been the
rise of the wanna-be’s. By 1990, many
teens in the Salt Lake suburbs were trying
to look like gang-bangers and would
dress that way. Others, later on, went
the route of straight-edgers. I’d always
see the cowboy wanna-be’s when I’d go
to do a rodeo chaplaincy. The rise of the
Goths and fringe people emerged and
many morphed from that into the
emos. Now it’s “in” to say you’re gay
and many are going that direction who
probably are not and wouldn’t have
been if it wasn’t some shockingly “cool”
thing to say to your straight-laced
Mormon parents. The polarization that
I see with all of these groups is widespread
with the younger generation still
headed deeper into lifestyles that they
really may not have wanted to pursue.
Of course, we’ll always have the jocks
who want to see how many conquests,
real or imagined, they can boast of to
their buddies but there are probably
more sexually aggressive girls on the
prowl now than ever and I can even
name churches where that is not the
exception, it is the norm. What really
grieves me is the reminder that God has
no grandchildren. We are born again,
then adopted into the Family of God
through the Blood Sacrifice of Jesus
Christ. These evangelical church kids,
and others, aren’t any different than
the kids in the Mormon ward chapels or
elsewhere where they just don’t have an
appreciation for the foundations of
their individual faiths. Rebellion can
happen in any religion and, if the LDS
or evangelical or Catholic or Jehovah’s
Witness kid is inactive or nonobservant,
it doesn’t really matter where they’re
housed on a Sunday morning. All are
equally lost. An encounter with God is
an individual thing, not a group event.
That’s why I’m still suspicious about
evangelistic crusades’ boasts of numbers
and cautious about the results of preplanned
Confirmation classes in which
14-year olds are told they’re going to
receive the Holy Spirit when the bishop
comes to that parish to lay his hands on
them.
OK, enough with the gloom, doom and
doubts. Let me get right to the point:
While we try to find out who we are by
trying to dress like the Goths, drink like
dad, prance with the gays or strut our
bad stuff with our gang colors, it doesn’t
mean that you were ever destined to
belong to any particular group. When
you become a Christian, you belong to
God – and, listen! HE will give you your
identity! It is found in Him.
Jesus said that a person can gain the
whole world and still lose his soul.
Matthew 16:26. It doesn’t matter what
you acquire to be cool or conquering,
your soul is worth more and if you don’t
know who you are, you don’t know
where your soul belongs. Until you
come to Jesus Christ and let Him save
your soul, your soul belongs to the
Devil, not you! It never did. While it’s
in your body, it is you but the ownership
is the issue. It’s merely on your premises
but Who or who really owns it?
Jesus also said that he (or she) who
loses his life for His sake will find it.
Matthew 10:39. When you find your
life in Jesus, you find your identity.
Without Him, we do it backwards: We
are trying to find our lives by finding
our identity first.
I was never an athlete, much to my
Dad’s disappointment. He was an allstar,
in The New Haven Register Sports
Section every week for some accomplishment
during his years at the same
high school I went to. He was president
of his class for three years in a row,
1923-1926, first Boy Mayor for a Day of
New Haven, an outstanding football
and track runner and a whole bunch of
other accomplishments. As much as my
older brother Harold wanted to play
sports, he suffered with asthma from
the time he was an infant and couldn’t.
And I never had the ability, agility or
interest to go the sports route. I could
swim and did, daily, and still do when I
can but when it came to competition, I
dropped out. Heck, I don’t even play
Monopoly, Risk, Scrabble or Chess to
win; I just enjoy playing for the fun of it
and the fellowship that can be a part of
it. So, I’m pretty dull and would never
have been a jock. If I were in high
school today, I don’t know what group
I’d go with: I wouldn’t want the pain of
the piercing that the Goths do, couldn’t
identify with the gays, value a girl’s
honor too much to be a swinger, and
would step back from getting a tattoo
when I think of how I’d look with it at
60! No, the jury would still be out if I
were trying to identify with any group
like kids feel the need to do today.
But then Jesus found me! I can’t say
that I found Him because it was clear
that I was the one who was lost, not He.
The Bible says that He comes to seek
and to save those who are lost, that
Salvation is something He bestows. And
He said, “You have not chosen Me, I
have chosen you.” John 15:16. It’s His
deal and His doing and somewhere in
all of that, I found out who I was – a
Christian, and my identity is in Him
because in Him and through Him I have
found my being. It doesn’t get any better
than that.
If you’re reading this right now, chances
are you’ve also been found by Him and
are resting in that Place and Peace with
God. Most of the people who receive
this newsletter know Jesus personally.
But I know some of you receiving it do
not. Why don’t you consider finding
yourself in Him? Even if you’re past
middle age, you might be amazed to see
that Jesus Christ will show you who He
really intended you to be all along and
in it He’d save that soul He gave you.
It’s His call but it’s your choice. He won’t violate your personal will; that is the
part of the soul you are. You can use it
to choose Him or reject Him. But it
would be eternal insanity to do so.
In the Name of the Father, the Son and
the Holy Spirit.
Dave.+
Copyright 2010 by Dave Roberts.+