A Lesson In Empathy

A friend of mine asked me to teach her Sunday School class today. Her class is the Teens so I was confident I could handle it. As I was preparing the lesson for this morning, I begin to think of all the things that the typical Christian teenager must face today. I must say this began to discourage me. It made me think of how much things have changed since I was a teenager. I began to think of what a teen today would need spiritually in order to be equipped to handle the stresses of day to day life. I figured the best thing to do would be to try and place myself in their shoes. I found this to be a very scary place. The pressures they feel today seem unbearable to me. Drugs, sexual immorality, and peer pressure are still around but a much more scarier thing has surfaced. The dark world of witchcraft and darkness. Hollywood has portrayed these things as cool and even normal. It makes me shudder to think that the next generation is being brought up to think these things are cool, normal, and not unusual. The Christian teen has so much more stacked against them than previous generations have. Their fight brings this scripture into mind "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places Eph 6:12 (KJV)" They truly do fight against darkness and wickedness in a way we will never understand. So in preparing a lesson for them, I was taught a lesson in empathy. I see the fight that lies ahead for them and will pray for them daily.