“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” - John 10:10
In talking about what is going on with young adults who are having trouble finding direction for their lives, here is something more to consider. “Since 1983, the percentage of licensed drivers in the United States under age 30 has dropped from 33 percent to 22 percent, while the percentage of people in their 20s who have a driver’s license has gone from 94 percent in 1983 to 84 percent in 2008, according to the study published in the Traffic Injury Prevention journal.” This loss of interest in getting a simple thing like a driver’s license has been linked with the growth of electronic media. Young people simply do not feel the need for a car to connect in person with other people as much anymore when the social media will do all that just as well if not better.
Why should we be so surprised then when we consider that electronic communications might just as well supplant the natural desires to form marital bonds and start families? This is especially true for men who are visually stimulated. The widespread proliferation of pornography has surely played a role in replacing the need for female companionship among young eligible bachelors. It has been the devil’s stock and trade to substitute the artificial for the real ever since the Garden of Eden. While most of us are a might uncomfortable in talking about sexual issues, this is a killer, and we all need to build some safeguards into our lives to protect both ourselves and our loved ones.
The internet is the primary source of unsuitable and degrading viewing. If we think that we or our children are above temptation, it is time to put this ill conceived thinking aside. Thankfully, there are any number of screening devices and safeguards readily available. But we know that across our culture today, there are few who will avail themselves of these protective measures. Children are taking smart phones to school and pulling up any and all websites at will and sharing them around. This is not a victimless crime. A searing of the soul will surely result with any number of resultant side effects. Is it any wonder that so many young adults are wandering aimlessly when they have a twisted view of life through viewing perversity or have been used and abused through careless and thoughtless relationships?
The whole sexual revolution has wreaked havoc on countless thousands of our young who think that they can indulge in licentious behavior without a thought and then suddenly exchange that for a monogamous married relationship when the right one comes along. The new morality has robbed those who fall prey to it of their innocence and left scars that sometimes never heal. Hugh Hefner, the poster child for uninhibited freedom, has shown himself incapable of successful marriage. Twice. That he has given up on it is good news for women.
The best guarantee for a successful marriage is sexual purity before marriage. We need to preach this to our children early and often. This is incredibly important for both young men and young women. God has not given his commands to steal our fun but rather to enable us to experience life to the fullest and to know it abundantly, even more than what we might ask or think. Bringing young people to the marriage altar unscarred is probably one of the biggest challenges we face today. There is no room, however, for compromise or winking at sin. We are either all in on this fight, or we have lost the battle before it has begun.
It is plainly wrong to assume that young adults who marry late in life have fallen victim to sin. There are other equally strong forces at play today that militate against early marriage. But it takes but little imagination to understand the correlation between immorality and stunted maturity. “Flee sexual immorality,” the Scripture says. And for good reason.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
“…if ye find my beloved, … tell him, that I am sick of love.” -Song of Solomon 5:8
So we broke all the rules of modern day convention in marrying at the tender age of 20 and 21. We had no house, not a stick of furniture between us, not even a car, and Linda faced 6 more months of school while I was headed for an overseas deployment. Further compounding the madness, I went two years to graduate school immediately following the military. But we did it all together. And it was good. Very good. Marriage is a powerfully civilizing force especially for young men, and I was no exception. Young men all of a sudden stop hanging out with the guys all night at the local pizza palace and find jobs, fulfillment, and purpose. Grades go from B’s and C’s to all A’s. It is an amazing transformation, really. I was a case in point.
Marriage is a tremendously soothing balm to the tumultuous years of wondering and waiting for both young men and women. Single young maidens tend to live in endless anticipation of the appearance of their knight in shining armor astride his white horse. Young men waste a lot of time wondering if there is ever a woman out there who would ever find them the least bit attractive. The whole dating scene is rife with tortured anxieties, awkwardness, and disappointments. Who among us married folk would ever want to go back to those days again? While marriage brings its own set of challenges, it at least provides a firm foundation of certainty that gratefully displaces waiting for the phone to ring.
There are many forces loose in our society today that militate against early marriage. Fears of young people emerging from broken homes inhibit many. Economic uncertainties, the sexual revolution, an uncut parental umbilical cord, and post modernism all play their part. What is especially tragic from my perspective is to watch the active opposition of family and friends to early marriage for reasons that are either simply materialistic, unrealistically idealistic, or just sheer pragmatic. Pragmatism be hanged, I say. When God brings two people together in love and purity, I vote to get out of their way and support them. When it’s right, it’s right. Get married and get on with life.
To help counteract the fear factor amongst young people today, I am convinced that we who have lived and loved through secure and stable marriages need to hold the institution high. I encourage all my friends to use any and all milestones in a marriage as reasons to celebrate. Whether it be 2 years or 20, party hearty. Let the world know, and especially your children, that marriage is for real, that it works, and can be downright fun. No matter even if it is the second time around, any loving, married relationship is a powerful force for good. Celebrate it.
Whatever difficulties young married couples might face today, they are almost always better faced together than apart. Long engagements just create a moral minefield for young lovers. And weddings will take as long to plan as one allows. If given a year, it will take every bit of it to plan one. If given three weeks, it will only take that long. And no one should ever forgo marriage because it is somehow “unaffordable.” Simple ceremonies are sometimes the most memorable. And the church family is an immeasurable asset that Christians have in launching a marriage. Run an engagement up the church flagpole and watch the ladies of the church all line up to serve, sing, direct, and bake. Everybody loves a wedding.
Please know, I am not advocating your high schoolers run off and get married at the drop of a hat. That is hardly the problem we face today. Rather it is our troubled twenty-somethings taking ten years to figure out a direction for their future. It may be funny on TV, but it is quite another thing in real life.
So we broke all the rules of modern day convention in marrying at the tender age of 20 and 21. We had no house, not a stick of furniture between us, not even a car, and Linda faced 6 more months of school while I was headed for an overseas deployment. Further compounding the madness, I went two years to graduate school immediately following the military. But we did it all together. And it was good. Very good. Marriage is a powerfully civilizing force especially for young men, and I was no exception. Young men all of a sudden stop hanging out with the guys all night at the local pizza palace and find jobs, fulfillment, and purpose. Grades go from B’s and C’s to all A’s. It is an amazing transformation, really. I was a case in point.
Marriage is a tremendously soothing balm to the tumultuous years of wondering and waiting for both young men and women. Single young maidens tend to live in endless anticipation of the appearance of their knight in shining armor astride his white horse. Young men waste a lot of time wondering if there is ever a woman out there who would ever find them the least bit attractive. The whole dating scene is rife with tortured anxieties, awkwardness, and disappointments. Who among us married folk would ever want to go back to those days again? While marriage brings its own set of challenges, it at least provides a firm foundation of certainty that gratefully displaces waiting for the phone to ring.
There are many forces loose in our society today that militate against early marriage. Fears of young people emerging from broken homes inhibit many. Economic uncertainties, the sexual revolution, an uncut parental umbilical cord, and post modernism all play their part. What is especially tragic from my perspective is to watch the active opposition of family and friends to early marriage for reasons that are either simply materialistic, unrealistically idealistic, or just sheer pragmatic. Pragmatism be hanged, I say. When God brings two people together in love and purity, I vote to get out of their way and support them. When it’s right, it’s right. Get married and get on with life.
To help counteract the fear factor amongst young people today, I am convinced that we who have lived and loved through secure and stable marriages need to hold the institution high. I encourage all my friends to use any and all milestones in a marriage as reasons to celebrate. Whether it be 2 years or 20, party hearty. Let the world know, and especially your children, that marriage is for real, that it works, and can be downright fun. No matter even if it is the second time around, any loving, married relationship is a powerful force for good. Celebrate it.
Whatever difficulties young married couples might face today, they are almost always better faced together than apart. Long engagements just create a moral minefield for young lovers. And weddings will take as long to plan as one allows. If given a year, it will take every bit of it to plan one. If given three weeks, it will only take that long. And no one should ever forgo marriage because it is somehow “unaffordable.” Simple ceremonies are sometimes the most memorable. And the church family is an immeasurable asset that Christians have in launching a marriage. Run an engagement up the church flagpole and watch the ladies of the church all line up to serve, sing, direct, and bake. Everybody loves a wedding.
Please know, I am not advocating your high schoolers run off and get married at the drop of a hat. That is hardly the problem we face today. Rather it is our troubled twenty-somethings taking ten years to figure out a direction for their future. It may be funny on TV, but it is quite another thing in real life.
And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone….” Gen. 2:18
We are looking ahead to the time when your children will be graduating high school, entering college, and hopefully finding themselves as mature adults in their early twenties. The real story right now is that so many of the twenty-somethings of today are having a hard time “finding themselves” and entering into responsible adulthood. Dr. Christian Smith is of the opinion that there is indeed something in the cultural drinking water of today’s world that is causing this. The first root cause he identified was the extension of educational pursuits well into the twenties. The second major phenomenon he identifies is the delay of marriage.
Rather than digress into a full discussion of the factors and influences at play in today’s culture, I will risk wearying you with my personal story. I do so because it highlights the differences between today’s cautious young adults and the way things were in our day. I met my wife to be during the second half of my senior year in college in 1966. She was a junior with one year yet to go. Love soon swept us along and during that summer we started thinking serious thoughts. Our engagement soon followed. But I was entering the army in September, and she would be going back to school. We sought and received the blessing of our family with a lot of unknowns in the wind. Linda’s Knoxville grandparents were so encouraging that they offered the use of their car and instructions on how to find the nearest justice of the peace just over the state line. Their generation was used to a more activist approach to marriage harking back to the day when congregations gathered in small country churches and the circuit rider would quiz his congregation to see if anyone wanted to get married at the end of the service. You could come down and get saved and married in one fell swoop.
We chose a family wedding, however. By then I was in the service stationed in Maryland while Linda was in school back in Illinois. I had a break in my training coming up in November so we planned a wedding. We were to either face periodic reunions over the next year or two as single adults needing a proper and respectable dating environment, or we could meet and live together as man and wife whenever time would allow. We chose marriage. I came home one weekend and was married the next. It was a simple church wedding with two attendants, and the ladies of the church pitched in and hosted a simple reception. It was a bare bones wedding but beautiful, and it got the job done. We had a one week honeymoon of sorts, and I flew back to Maryland. We were poor and did not even own a car between us. But we were happy and were able to spend Christmas together traveling unchaperoned to Philadelphia and Washington. Freedom!
I flew home that spring stopping for a few days on my way to Korea. After graduation, Linda flew to Korea right behind me having landed a job in Seoul working for Compassion. That began a several month odyssey where we lived separated by a two hour bus ride on weekends when the army was so inclined. Visits were confined to Saturday and Sunday. Linda had a room with missionaries and would occasionally spend an awkward weekend with me at my forward base where accommodations were crude and totally male. All total, it was a year and a half before we actually were able to live together under one roof as man and wife.
It was challenging, but we shared some incredible experiences together. Korea was rich in culture and adventure. We visited Japan on mid-tour leave and stopped through Hawaii on our way home. We would not trade that time together for anything. As a result, our motto is simply, “When it’s right, it’s right.” Marriage simplifies a lot of things and actually brings about the maturity that many today wistfully await before committing. We were 20 and 21 when married and even thought that kind of late compared to many high school friends. 47 years later it is still right.
We are looking ahead to the time when your children will be graduating high school, entering college, and hopefully finding themselves as mature adults in their early twenties. The real story right now is that so many of the twenty-somethings of today are having a hard time “finding themselves” and entering into responsible adulthood. Dr. Christian Smith is of the opinion that there is indeed something in the cultural drinking water of today’s world that is causing this. The first root cause he identified was the extension of educational pursuits well into the twenties. The second major phenomenon he identifies is the delay of marriage.
Rather than digress into a full discussion of the factors and influences at play in today’s culture, I will risk wearying you with my personal story. I do so because it highlights the differences between today’s cautious young adults and the way things were in our day. I met my wife to be during the second half of my senior year in college in 1966. She was a junior with one year yet to go. Love soon swept us along and during that summer we started thinking serious thoughts. Our engagement soon followed. But I was entering the army in September, and she would be going back to school. We sought and received the blessing of our family with a lot of unknowns in the wind. Linda’s Knoxville grandparents were so encouraging that they offered the use of their car and instructions on how to find the nearest justice of the peace just over the state line. Their generation was used to a more activist approach to marriage harking back to the day when congregations gathered in small country churches and the circuit rider would quiz his congregation to see if anyone wanted to get married at the end of the service. You could come down and get saved and married in one fell swoop.
We chose a family wedding, however. By then I was in the service stationed in Maryland while Linda was in school back in Illinois. I had a break in my training coming up in November so we planned a wedding. We were to either face periodic reunions over the next year or two as single adults needing a proper and respectable dating environment, or we could meet and live together as man and wife whenever time would allow. We chose marriage. I came home one weekend and was married the next. It was a simple church wedding with two attendants, and the ladies of the church pitched in and hosted a simple reception. It was a bare bones wedding but beautiful, and it got the job done. We had a one week honeymoon of sorts, and I flew back to Maryland. We were poor and did not even own a car between us. But we were happy and were able to spend Christmas together traveling unchaperoned to Philadelphia and Washington. Freedom!
I flew home that spring stopping for a few days on my way to Korea. After graduation, Linda flew to Korea right behind me having landed a job in Seoul working for Compassion. That began a several month odyssey where we lived separated by a two hour bus ride on weekends when the army was so inclined. Visits were confined to Saturday and Sunday. Linda had a room with missionaries and would occasionally spend an awkward weekend with me at my forward base where accommodations were crude and totally male. All total, it was a year and a half before we actually were able to live together under one roof as man and wife.
It was challenging, but we shared some incredible experiences together. Korea was rich in culture and adventure. We visited Japan on mid-tour leave and stopped through Hawaii on our way home. We would not trade that time together for anything. As a result, our motto is simply, “When it’s right, it’s right.” Marriage simplifies a lot of things and actually brings about the maturity that many today wistfully await before committing. We were 20 and 21 when married and even thought that kind of late compared to many high school friends. 47 years later it is still right.
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” -Luke 14:28
Emerging adults in their 20’s have been the subject of a good deal of examination recently as their lives have taken significantly different trajectories than those of their parents. These are generational observations which are generalizations at best, but they are significantly documented enough to cause us to pause and ask, “What is going on here?” To summarize it in most basic terms, today’s emerging adults are waiting much longer to marry, to have children, and to choose a career path than ever before. Historians in studying past generations have been common to link earlier average marrying age with greater prosperity. When times were good, young men could take on the obligations of marriage and start out on their own at an earlier age. Today we live in one of the most affluent times in the history of the world and yet just the opposite is occurring. So what gives?
Dr. Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at Notre Dame, primarily studies religion, adolescents, American evangelicalism, and culture. His latest book, Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood, is a compelling examination of the cultural forces at work today that are shaping our adolescents into the young adults of tomorrow. We all know a few young adults who seem lost and aimless while their most fruitful childbearing years and career opportunities are evaporating in front of them. Whether they are college graduates who are now waiting tables or who are approaching thirty and are still having a hard time thinking about marriage, these precious years fill parents with great anxieties when they see their children wandering about without any clear direction or sense of purpose. Professor Smith has thought long and hard about these things, and it would behoove us as parents of teenagers to know something of the forces that are acting upon our children to produce this “lostness.” To be forewarned is to be forearmed. I will be taking the next few Thursday News articles to profile the leading causes of this phenomena in the mind of Christian Smith.
One of the first notable shifts in our society in the past several decades has been the growth of higher education. It officially began with the GI Bill following WWII when thousands of young men and women entered college in great numbers. The lure of a professional career became a common pursuit. The cheapening of a high school diploma has also made it almost a requirement to obtain some form of higher education in order to break into the job market. Today’s bachelor’s degree is yesterday’s high school diploma, or almost. As a result, young people find themselves thrown in with thousands of other young people in a university setting where no one has to think much about the demands of real adulthood for four more years. So, let’s party and enjoy it while it lasts. The trouble is that post-graduate education has now also become a necessity for so many careers, and the major life choices of marriage and family are put off even farther. Christian Smith, himself, was in school until almost thirty, a condition he now views as almost insane. It is true that advanced schooling is easier done without the responsibilities of family bearing down. Thus, parents often put pressure on their children to not consider marriage until their schooling is complete. But this can create a minefield for young men and women deeply in love who are told to shelve their passions until graduation that is possibly years away.
I would simply suggest we look long and hard at some of these modern preconceptions regarding education. Simply “going to college” is not a plan for a life. Clear goals for one day entering the job market should come into play before enrolling. A bachelor’s degree in psychology or British literature is a nice trophy for the mantel but a non-starter for feeding a family. And let’s not downgrade the skilled labor force where a plumber can out earn a college degree many times over. Also, marriage and college should never be that incompatible. Two can live as cheaply as one. Plus, my grade point average went up one whole point after marriage. Nothing focuses a man like marriage.
Mercy and Truth, Mr. Moe
Emerging adults in their 20’s have been the subject of a good deal of examination recently as their lives have taken significantly different trajectories than those of their parents. These are generational observations which are generalizations at best, but they are significantly documented enough to cause us to pause and ask, “What is going on here?” To summarize it in most basic terms, today’s emerging adults are waiting much longer to marry, to have children, and to choose a career path than ever before. Historians in studying past generations have been common to link earlier average marrying age with greater prosperity. When times were good, young men could take on the obligations of marriage and start out on their own at an earlier age. Today we live in one of the most affluent times in the history of the world and yet just the opposite is occurring. So what gives?
Dr. Christian Smith, a professor of sociology at Notre Dame, primarily studies religion, adolescents, American evangelicalism, and culture. His latest book, Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood, is a compelling examination of the cultural forces at work today that are shaping our adolescents into the young adults of tomorrow. We all know a few young adults who seem lost and aimless while their most fruitful childbearing years and career opportunities are evaporating in front of them. Whether they are college graduates who are now waiting tables or who are approaching thirty and are still having a hard time thinking about marriage, these precious years fill parents with great anxieties when they see their children wandering about without any clear direction or sense of purpose. Professor Smith has thought long and hard about these things, and it would behoove us as parents of teenagers to know something of the forces that are acting upon our children to produce this “lostness.” To be forewarned is to be forearmed. I will be taking the next few Thursday News articles to profile the leading causes of this phenomena in the mind of Christian Smith.
One of the first notable shifts in our society in the past several decades has been the growth of higher education. It officially began with the GI Bill following WWII when thousands of young men and women entered college in great numbers. The lure of a professional career became a common pursuit. The cheapening of a high school diploma has also made it almost a requirement to obtain some form of higher education in order to break into the job market. Today’s bachelor’s degree is yesterday’s high school diploma, or almost. As a result, young people find themselves thrown in with thousands of other young people in a university setting where no one has to think much about the demands of real adulthood for four more years. So, let’s party and enjoy it while it lasts. The trouble is that post-graduate education has now also become a necessity for so many careers, and the major life choices of marriage and family are put off even farther. Christian Smith, himself, was in school until almost thirty, a condition he now views as almost insane. It is true that advanced schooling is easier done without the responsibilities of family bearing down. Thus, parents often put pressure on their children to not consider marriage until their schooling is complete. But this can create a minefield for young men and women deeply in love who are told to shelve their passions until graduation that is possibly years away.
I would simply suggest we look long and hard at some of these modern preconceptions regarding education. Simply “going to college” is not a plan for a life. Clear goals for one day entering the job market should come into play before enrolling. A bachelor’s degree in psychology or British literature is a nice trophy for the mantel but a non-starter for feeding a family. And let’s not downgrade the skilled labor force where a plumber can out earn a college degree many times over. Also, marriage and college should never be that incompatible. Two can live as cheaply as one. Plus, my grade point average went up one whole point after marriage. Nothing focuses a man like marriage.
Mercy and Truth, Mr. Moe
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