The waves of accusation towards our hero don't desire to acquiesce so easily to simple trust. After all, they have a mission: to destroy every last ounce of trust and innocence your heart and mind have. They won't be satisfied... no, they won't be satisfied with simply crippling our generation. They want to rape us of our innocence, rob us of our vulnerability and leave us desiring death more than love, in order to simply ease the great pain we feel. They want to make sure we never trust another living soul again! "Just let it go; just survive this life. Nothing is ever gonna change, you know that now. How stupid were you to trust people again--so naive," they accuse. The bombardment is a purposeful and intentional strategy to relieve us of all of our strength...
]]>As generations of people crave to be fathered we are left with the choice of viewing this need as a daunting task or as an unwavering promise. I prefer to see it as the latter, but we must understand that in order to move into the promise, we are first invited into exploring the mystery of how God can, in one generation, restore both the fatherless and the widow!
A fatherless generation has created a sonless generation. We don't know how to be sons! If we are not restored as sons we will live perpetually as orphans, crippled in our ability to receive our inheritance thus hindering the inheritance we leave our sons. There will always be an "apology" added to what we have to give, as if we will never be enough. After all, we've been taught through life that our own "fathers" were never enough. How will we surpass them? Is it possible to give something to our own children that we never received? In case we are unaware of it, our sons do need to be fathered and they are looking to us whether we like it or not. It’s this reality that is creating a tension such as never felt before in our generation. What do we do with this tension? Do we disengage from the expectation of giving something we don't feel we have in order to relieve the pressure? Do we perform at our greatest level to prove we have what it takes to mentor? ...
The conversation articulates something I have seen running rampad through our society as many of us look for mentors and heroes to follow. What is it that spurs us on? Why are we driven to find people we can look up to? Its natural. All of us do it. We search high and low in every arena of life looking for the "one" that will show us "it can be done." Weve heard enough speeches, read enough tales of what could be, should be or even was. Life is always pointing to another time, another era, another generation that did it right or did it wrong. So we learn from history, we learn what to do, what not to do, how to think and even how to dream. Yet, nothing seems to be able to alleviate the gaping crater found in our soul. This crater is screaming out, "will someone please show me it can be done? Not...it has been done....or it will be done. I want to see it 'being done'!
And so, the hero. The hero we've been looking for is finally found. We have different names for them. Some call them mentors, others "spiritual fathers or mothers", guidance counselors, ministers, coaches....the list goes on. All seem to have one thing in common...each are sought after to show us "it can be done!" This drive to find someone we can look up to. There are multiple healthy expressions of such a relationship. For instance, imagine you are having a very difficult time in your marraige. You might look for a counselor to help you out. Yet, the most powerful tool you could ever aquire is having a couple who have a healthy marraige to spend time with. Nothing takes the place of real life experiences with people who have dominion over the very thing we are fighting for. And this is what our generation is thirsting for....someone to look up to, someone who has done it not just talked about it. So, the search begins. But for many of us the search has led us down several different paths of heartache, triumph, blood..sweat and tears, and bonding beyond any imagination of what is possible. So what is it that leads us down these paths? What dictates how our story will end, or even better, how it is going?
]]>