Our youth is an exhilarating time to pursue our dreams, uphold our ideals, and take stands for what we believe to be righteous causes. What we lack in experience and knowledge we make up for with youthful passion and zeal. Many a revival has been sparked by the enthusiasm of young people who chose to live their lives authentically and consecrated to God.
Tragically, however, as time passes, our passion for God can wane. We become distracted with numerous cares, concerns, and temptations. Over the years our idealism can deteriorate into cynicism. We can be tempted to neglect our relationship with God because of our numerous responsibilities only to discover that our love for Him has grown cold. We can mistakenly assume that we can function on yesterday’s walk with God. It takes effort to do the God-honoring thing every day! Unfortunately we can sometimes feel too tired to make the effort to do the right thing any more.
After years of walking with God, we ought to be enjoying the deepest, most profound relationship with Him of our lives. We should have moved beyond the shallow, emotion driven commitments of our youth to a deep, abiding relationship characterized by unshakeable faith and obedience. But that is not always so. Have the years softened your heart toward God or made it calloused and hard? Is your commitment to obey God whatever the cost greater than it has ever been? Have you reached new levels of insight into God’s word? Is your prayer life richer than it was five years ago? Or, along your leadership journey, did your heart turn from God, even slightly, so that today you find yourself far from where you were in your youth?