The Heart Cry of Our Generation

OK..so I've slacked in my thought-sharing here...just like I thought might happen...time to get back into it, I suppose??

This whole week has been a stirring of my heart for the generation we're in...a generation of longing, hoping, desiring, yearning..all for things that moves us away from the "instant" generation back to a want for plain and simple authenticity and reality. The hyped up message of a once-prescribed "MTV" generation is turning more and more to "give us something real" instead of "give us something that is real because you have defined it as such and it's close enough for us to accept as real and be comfortable allowing it to influence who we are". For too long we have been poked and prodded into a reality stupor with all the shows out there touting themselves as "reality TV" when in reality they are regular shows with regular producers that are still looking out for the entertainment value of the show because otherwise they will end up like anything else that has any type of instrinsic wholesome lesson to teach us: cancelled.

I spent the week with a group of young people in Panama City Beach, Florida, at a camp called Beach Freak so we could become freaks for the Jesus that we serve and love so much. I don't think many of us needed to go there for the "freak" label to be true, but I have to say that it was an awesome time in God. He truly showed up and real-ly moved on the hearts of a generation crying out for something more. In every conversation I got to have with one of these amazing guys or girls, my heart connected with theirs and I was instantly pulled to the desperation within them to have something real. Not something prescribed and fed to them as reality, but reality defined by them. What is reality to them? Transparency. Authenticity. Raw truth. Each and every word I spoke I had to watch to make sure it was dripping with reality because otherwise it would only serve to not quite feed the starving spirits of a generation all around me. But at the same time I was realizing that they needed more...more than I really had to give...more than I think I could ever have to give...more than I think they realized they needed themselves.

Skipping back to now...I had this urge in my spirit prior to prayer this evening about what the cry of this generation really is. I had these questions resounding in my spirit that were demanding answers and a response that I didn't think I had. I found myself asking, well, myself, "What drives the spirit of their passion and the passion of their spirit?". So, when I had no answer, I waited on the Lord to prompt one, and I got answers like this: hungry for reality, thirsty for truth, longing for relationship, burdened for someone to be transparent with, desire for openness and freedom, discontent with anything but authenticity....I found myself so overwhelmed with the seeming randomness of this thought process that I couldn't help but begin to wonder what this looked like, how it would manifest in our young people...

All week at camp my heart was pulled to a passage in the book of Joel. I just wanted to dissect it, break it apart, piece it back together, and start all over again. Joel 3:9-10 spoke to me about how this generation was going to see all of the things it is longing for come to pass, and I just didn't realize it until now when I sat to write and share some thoughts. This passage reads, Prepare for war! Wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, "I am strong". The only hope for this generation is for them to wake up! They will never obtain what they are longing for until they wake up and realize that the battle is up to them. The hunger and thirst for reality and truth is something they will have to satisfy in the Lord by themselves. We as their leaders can lead them to the cross, but we can't make them bear it or want to bear it - they have to do that on their own!

My heart is stirred for a generation that the enemy thinks is dead. He is hoping that they will continue to be lulled into that reality stupor by the things he continually blasts them with each day. But I declare that they shall rise up out of the mirey clay and stand upon the rock of Jesus Christ. I proclaim that no weapon formed against them shall prosper, and every tongue that rises up against them in judgment they shall condemn! I decree that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, and it will be THIS generation leading the charge!

What's the heart cry of our generation? VICTORY in Jesus Christ, and what a sweet victory it is!!