Though it was the middle of the day, it seemed like night fall.  The humongous trees of the Amazon jungle darted straight into the sky and formed a canopy high above leaving the surface below void of much sunlight. Eight medical residence students, three nationals, our guide, and I were walking a narrow trail deep in the jungles in Ecuador.  The trail was hard to follow and if it were not for the experience and instincts of our guide and the nationals, it would have been all but impossible to follow.  The brush, vines, and smaller trees had grown untamed for countless years and the only safe place to walk was to follow the trail of those who had been through before.

I learned that in the jungles, staying on the trail is critical.  It is the difference between life and death many times.  Staying on the trail is a reliable way to make it to your destination.  Getting off of the trail means the possibility of being lost in miles and miles of dense rainforest, attack by animals or hostile tribes who to this day reside in the jungles living a stone age like existence.
Those few days I spent in the jungles remind me so much of what it is like to work with teenagers.  Like the trail I was following, we want young people to follow Gods’ trail for it is the only sure and reliable way to live.  Yet for teenagers (and adults), life is like that jungle.  Sometimes the trail is hard to follow but leaving the trail has disastrous results.

How many times do we see children grow up in the church with a seemingly strong commitment to the Lord, but as the teen years approach, attitudes, behaviors, and friends change?   With this new set of behaviors (many of which are undesirable for parents and teachers) kids struggle with their relationship with the Lord.  The world pulls strongly in the wrong direction and the temptations are too great for many youth.  Slowly but steadily they step off of God’s trail and before long their life can become a train wreck.
As youth leaders, we have to become passionate about teaching kids to walk with God. Look at it like this; if you were a football coach, you would be passionate about teaching kids the game of football. Football would consume your conversation with the kids. As a coach, you would not play unrelated games for 45 minutes, eat cookies, talk about a white water rafting trip and then practice football for five or ten minutes at the end. No! Football would be your priority.
If you were a dance teacher, your students would learn to dance, not learn a better strategy for laser tag. Why? Because dance teachers are passionate about teaching dance. That is what they do.
Yet, oddly enough, youth ministry seems to violate all sense of common logic. Youth ministry may be the one place where the claim is to be passionate about one thing but, in fact, most of the time is spent doing other things.
Here is my point; we must be passionate about teaching kids to walk with God and we actually do it. We must teach them to walk with God. Just like a good football coach will teach the fundamentals of good tackling and a dance teacher will precision of step, youth leaders must get serious about teaching their passion – helping kids walk with God!

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Cataract:  Opacity of the lens of the eye, causing partial or total blindness.
(Funk and Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary)

We finally did it!  We talked my grandmother into exploring the possibility of getting eye surgery for her cataracts.  It was tough.  She was convinced that her vision was fine and the cataracts were no problem but we in the family knew differently.  As her eyes became worse, she was been unable to write on envelopes or checks, change TV channels or many other basic tasks around the home she had done for years.  The real struggle was that my grandmother was convinced her vision was normal.  She had adapted to the impaired vision and accepted the abnormal as normal.

Finally, an appointment was made with the physician.  The doctor gently explained how bad a condition her eyes were in.  My grandmother learned that after the surgery she would, for the first time in years, see clearly. What great news that was!  What a great thing; to see things as they should be.

I drove her to the world renown optometrist for her surgery.  After several hours of paperwork, verification of insurance, counseling, tests, and preparation for surgery, she was called to the physician’s chair.  With great care, the experienced doctor went about his daily business.  A small incision was made in the eye, the bad lens was removed and replaced with expert precision.

I can remember waiting in the lobby while my dear grandmother was in surgery. Then suddenly it hit me! God, in only the way he can do it, reminded me that we all need eye surgery, just a different procedure and from the Master Physician.

Our struggle is that to some extent, we all have clouded vision but our cataract is different.  Our cataract is a world view created by our sinful nature. Today we view things through a lens of our humanistic, post modern world and not the things of God.  The crud which covers our eyes are the lies that we believe that are contrary to God’s Word.

We all see life through a set of lenses and that set of lenses determines how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we see the Lord Jesus.  Some look at life through the lenses of past hurtful experiences, some look through the glasses of information embraced in higher education, while others use their upbringing as their lens.  The challenge for the believer is to see ourselves, others, and the Lord through His eyes.  We must use the lens of God’s Word for our view into the things of this life.

Let’s be brave!  Let’s go have eye surgery together.  Start Sunday morning.  Go to church, get in the pew.  Listen to the music before the service starts and in the depth of your heart, climb into the Master’s surgical chair.  The good news is that this time there will be no paperwork, verification of insurance, counseling, or tests.  Just beg the Lord Jesus to help you see clearly, to see how He sees.  Submit to His surgery, even if it hurts.  Get rid of the cloudy lens of the world.  Repent for allowing the abnormal to become normal in your life.  Ask God to break you if necessary.  It will be worth it because when it is all over, you will enjoy clear vision and see life in a new and wonderful way, the life as the Lord would have you to live and serve Him with.

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It was a hectic Thursday night at the Northside Adolescent Unit where I used to work as a counselor.  We were short on staff with a full unit of troubled kids. I was involved with two take downs and all three time out rooms were full.  It was very stressful.  But, the biggest problem of the dreadful evening was Darren.

If you were to meet Darren you would think, “Wow, what a nice kid.  What is he doing in a place like this?”  And in many ways he was a very pleasant young man. He was fifteen years old, a bright smile and a good sense of humor.   However, Darren was obsessed with the Mafia.  He combed his hair like the gang leaders of the twenties and had been involved in multiple “Mafia” type crimes around his school and community.  He was eventually court ordered to our facility.

I stood at the door of the Time Out room. Darren sat slumped in the corner, head in his hands crying.  He had become very violent on the unit and after multiple commands to walk to the time out room we had to take him in a struggle.

“What are you thinking about Darren?” I asked him.

He looked at me with his tear stained face and replied, “I feel so lost.”

That was in June of 1992 and his words have echoed in my mind ever since.  $500 a day plus doctor bills and medication and there was still no help for Darren.  He truly was lost.  The therapists were working to change his mind, the medication was working to change him chemically, but there was nothing that could change his heart.  He needed the Lord Jesus in His life and until that happened, he would remain lost.
There are so many ways we try to change people.  Millions and millions of dollars a year are spent trying to change people.  Advancements in medicine, changes in education, and social reform are all aimed at changing a hurting people both here in the US and abroad.  I am not a cynic.  I applaud the many people who commit their time to making life better for the masses who need help.  The problem is that only a changed heart with Christ as resident King brings real, long lasting change to individuals, communities, and nations.
Bruce Olson was a 19 year-old boy who left home against his parents wishes to go to the jungles to evangelize a murderous tribe of Indians.  He suffered capture, disease, terror, loneliness, and torture. Through a long series of events, he began living with the Motilone tribe of Indians.  He taught them health measures, agricultural techniques, the value of preserving their heritage and translated the Bible into their language.  Since then, Bruce Olson has spoken before the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the personal friend of four presidents of Columbia.  In his biography, Bruchko, Olson writes,
“The most important thing I can say to those who want to help people is this:  They will not be helped very much unless they find purpose in life through Jesus Christ.  Without Him, whatever development takes place always will be twisted or corrupted.  It will embitter those who try to hold it together, and those who don’t care about it will be ruined by apathy and alienation.  But with Jesus, there can be real change.  Not just change by and by.  Real change, now, with visible power. He is the source of all change.” ( Bruchko  p. 162 ) [1]

As the Lord brings people into our lives and our church to help, let’s remember that real change is change where the Lord Jesus gives hope and purpose.  Are you inviting people to church?  Please begin this week.  Do you know how to present the gospel?  Learn how to share your faith.  Let’s be a people and a church of real change, change found in Him.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone.  The new has come.”  2 Corinthians 5:17

[1] – Olson, Bruce  Bruchko, Creation House, 1983

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