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If you identify yourself as Christian, then you likely know about these three pillars to the Christian faith: 1) Church, 2) Prayer, and 3) Reading the Bible. These things are universal to the Christian experience, whether you “grew up in” the church or became a believer much later in life. And then there’s the list of things NOT to do. Don’t drink, smoke, curse, listen to heavy metal (unless it’s heavy Christian metal), be promiscous, abuse/deal illegal drugs, and so on and so forth. For the majority of us, this list of three do’s and the longer list of don’ts make up the core of Christianity.
But some really cool things have happened in our lives lately, and in the lives of people we know. Spiritual, supernatural things. And our first reaction is to be shocked, surprised, and a little freaked out, almost as if we haven’t fully grasped this thing all along. You mean there’s really a God up there, and He really does interact with us? No way! And while the workings of the Holy Spirit should indeed amaze us, as my husband said today, this is really just basic Christianity.
We can talk to God. Did you know that He will talk back? How does He talk with us today? What does it mean to live in the Spirit? Pray in the Spirit? I’m tired of skipping over those parts of my Bible. I want more than lukewarm, rule-following Christianity. Don’t you?
Say evangelism and I picture a man in a sandwich board on the streets of our inner cities, shouting “Repent!” And in times past, the literal “city” was indeed the best place to be heard by the most ears. Today we have the internet, which unites us across cities, states and countries on one message board. When was the last time you tried to reach out?
I’m currently involved in an interesting discussion on MySpace. If you’re a MySpace member, click here to view it and even participate. I think you can view it even if you aren’t a member, but to comment you’ll need to sign in. So far in this discussion we’ve covered free will, drinking, moral relativism, evolution, and misconceptions about biblical womanhood inside and outside of church. You may want to skip the first page or two, since I got some obscene comments early on (see the last post). But since then it has been interesting and thought-provoking.
I wonder how many people truly hear the guy on the corner with the sandwich board? I have found it’s the same with the web — the best results come from personal relationship, which sometimes means hearing (or reading, in this case) things that I myself wouldn’t say. How else can we be the light in the darkness, if we’re not willing to engage the dark places?
I posted an announcement about my book for Christian college girls on MySpace the other day. Did you know that MySpace is the number one website for college students? If you’re interested in seeing the replies to my announcement, click here. But be warned: many of these replies are obscene and extraordinarily offensive. Just the mention of God, college, and girls in one breath apparently warrants all kinds of attack.
Do you think our girls aren’t in a war out there? From sex to postmodern feminism, in addition to the regular college pressures of humanism and increased freedom — it’s a spiritual war in the truest sense. And the crazy thing is that they really can emerge from college stronger and more faithful women of Christ, but it won’t happen by accident.
So your daughter is graduating from high school in a couple of months, and you feel, well, everything. Words likely cannot express the wide range of emotions over this giant milestone in her life. You’re happy, sad, proud, maybe a bit worried, grieving for the “baby” you raised, and rejoicing in the grown woman she’s become.
Will she be going to college? If so, she’ll need your prayers more than ever. As a college student, she will have opportunity galore but with opportunity comes unprecedented pressure to figure it all out. By sophomore year she will need to declare a major. This brings even bigger questions to mind, questions that frame her entire future. What does she want in a career? When does she want to get married? When would be the ideal time to have children? How would having a husband and children impact her career? And so it goes.
You may feel relatively confident that she can handle these pressures. And she can, but she needs the right tools. You have some very seductive competition on the college campus, and I’m not talking about that guy sitting next to her in Calculus 101. I’m referring to postmodern feminist theory – the idea that God is old-fashioned and oppressive (even irrelevant), families tie you down, and you have the right to pursue your own dreams and desires at the cost of everything else. Believe me, this philosophy is alive and well on your daughter’s college campus!
Even Christian colleges can’t escape these ideas seeping in from the young adult culture. And because postmodern feminist theory will frame the way your daughter sees her future, it could indeed derail what God has planned for her, even at the stage of choosing a major. So what can you do? Four things: 1) Pray, 2) Let her go, 3) Entrust her to God’s hands, and finally 4) Teach her to do the same for herself. You’ve probably been doing all of these since the day you sent her off to kindergarten, so don’t stop now.
You might also want to check out my book — The College Precipice: Faith and Life for Young Women. It would be a great graduation gift!
