I spent four full days recently with about 70 young people at the Emmanuel Summer Youth Camp in Lugbe, Abuja. The camping exercise was for me (and I am sure for the young people too) a very rewarding and enriching experience. After such an encounter with young people, I now wish to reflect briefly on the critical challenge and the moral imperative of investing our skills, talents and resources in the future of our children, which is also the future of our Church and the future of our society at large.
The challenge I put before all adult Christians and parents is to assume responsibility for the future generation, by salvaging our youth population and equipping them adequately to lead God-fearing, meaningful, purposeful and successful lives here on earth, as well as eternal life in the hereafter. This is because a major tragedy stares us in the face, if (in spite of whatever we may consider our successes today) we do not invest sufficiently in the spiritual and moral formation of those whom we call the leaders of tomorrow.
We shall bequeath to the coming generation only a legacy of failure, if what most of us care about today as parent, is how to send our children to expensive schools, and how to inundate them with superfluous goods and needless gargets, while making little time available for, and giving little attention to their more serious need for wholesome spiritual, moral, emotional and psychological development. It is in this regard that I have often reminded parents and leaders that “success without successor is nothing but failure in disguise!”
The youths of the 21st Century are living in a world of multiple contradictions, a world that is witnessing change on all fronts at such an alarming rate that is perhaps unprecedented in human history. The enormity of this change and the attendant social turmoil have in one way or the other taken its toll on the individual and corporate lives of the modern generation. We are watching the lives of many young people literally torn apart by a complexity of conflicting value orientations, divergent worldviews and competing ideologies.
The instability in marital life and the fragility of the family institution, the tragedy of bad leadership and widespread corruption, the degrading poverty and worsening economic fortunes of the multitude of people, the rising rate of crime, the phenomenon of terrorism, and the now frequent ethnic skirmishes, religious conflicts and civil wars, have often left the youth population of our world distressed and traumatised. Many are losing the sense of meaning and hope in life, and to worsen the matter, an ever increasing number of these youths are unable to connect with the life of faith, the religiosity or the piety that brought the parents thus far.
While all this is going on however, many adult Christians and parents have continued to operate with a false sense of security, as if we were going through the best of times. Many parents and leaders have remained complacent in the face of the enormous challenges that face humanity in the area of youth development. Yet, the above scenario, and my recent encounter with a number of children indicate that young people of today are yearning for moral and spiritual leadership. They are looking for people to help them answer the fundamental questions and puzzles of life. They are looking for people to show them the way. They are looking for mentors in life of meaning and purpose.
My personal conviction and disposition is that we adult Christians and parents can make a difference in the world for the upcoming generation. We can help the young people find answers to the fundamental questions in their hearts and direct their search towards Jesus Christ who is the answer to all life’s puzzles. We could show the world and especially our young people the way out of their present dire predicament. But the question is: Will we? Do we possess the spiritual resources necessary to meet such a challenge? Do we have the moral authority to do so? Do we have the political will? Are we ready to stand on God’s Word and God’s promises? Are we ready to take responsibility (like King David did in Psalm 78:4) for what happens to the next generation? Do we truly recognise that success without successor is failure in disguise?
St Paul challenges us in Ephesians 5:16, that “this may be a wicked age, but your lives should redeem it.” He places the responsibility of transforming an evil generation unto good squarely in the hands of Christians! We read from the book of Joshua that at a time of debauchery in the life of the emergent nation of Israel, when the majority of people had begun to lose faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and when they were taking to the worship of the idols like the Canaanite tribes round about them, Joshua their leader (who had been steadfast all his life and who was about to die at this point), summoned them to himself and demanded that they choose whom they want to serve - the God of Abraham or those idols that they had been flirting around with. Then he declared in those famous words, “As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:15).
Proverbs 29:18 says that where there is no vision the people do perish. The Lord therefore challenges adult Christians and parents to show the true way of life to the young men and women of our day who are often lost in the world of endless acquisition, senseless consumption and mindless pleasure. By a life devoted to the pursuit of spiritual, moral and transcendental values, the Lord challenges us to demonstrate to the young people around us at home, in Church, at work or at school, that “being” is greater than “having,” and that life is not a property to be defended, but rather a gift to be shared.
I am convinced today more than ever before of the need to invest in our future by channelling a lot of our time and resources into the wholesome formation and integral development of our youths, because what we see as our successes today must have multiplier effect for the coming generation. They must bear fruits for the future to the glory of God. Thus as a struggling priest, I consider that the Church will do well with a better priest than myself. So I see myself called upon today to invest a lot of my talents and resources in the formation of young people, so that from among them, better priests than me will emerge in the Church of tomorrow.
We must invest heavily in our children and our youth population, so that from among them would emerge better Presidents, better Governors, better Local Government Chairmen, better MDs and better Company Directors than we have had. Above all, as adult Christians, parents and Church leaders, if today we invest appropriately in our youths through prayers, through showing good example in Christian living, through adequate spiritual, moral and human development programmes, combined with the grace of God, then we can look forward to a more vibrant Christian Church, a more peaceful and prosperous country, and a more secure and wholesome world than we have experienced in our own time. Yes, in Christ’s name we must take responsibility for the future generation!