My first whiff of upcoming college freshmen (My lament for myself)

The college age is preparing to bring in the next high school senior class. *WARNING* *CRITICAL ALERT* Please do not read any farther if you are a high school senior, college freshman, or sensitive person who sees all people as truly and deeply unique.

So, as I was getting to, the college age is preparing to bring in the next high school senior class. I don’t know if it is obsessive amount of House that I have watched lately or just the amount of years I have under me now in college age ministry, but I have a tough time not being bored. All things repeat, all things repeat. It is so hard for me to look at a senior and not describe to them their next 2 years of life, and the worst part is that if I allow myself to do it, I am almost always right. It’s not that I am super intelligent, just observant. Seniors will soon graduate and talk of being friends forever, play the same songs at their graduation, and embrace the extreme perpetual nature of pre-adulthood until they are shocked into reality by true responsibility or irrelevancy. The permission of society to see ones self as an independent individual goes rapidly to the brain and eats away the essence of intelligence. I really don’t think that this is avoidable, it is part of growing up, maturing.

I just wish one thing: that they would know why. I have always stated the importance of the question why. It is what separates the foolish college freshman and the foolish college freshman who understands why they are foolish (Foolishness in college freshmen is hard to avoid). And understanding why is half the battle (No GI Joe history here). Now as I want all those who are Christians to continue to grow in Him, for those that leave Him or will leave Him, I long for an honest look at why. I wish they would own up to the truth: I had my parents faith, I am too weak to avoid temptation, I was a Christian by association only, whatever. Any of those things are better than the trailing off of faith as they sit for the first time ever with their parents in the back of the worship center.

I guess it’s the predictability that breaks my heart. The repetitiveness of promises made and not understood, the pleading of friends, family, and ministers to maintain consistency, the arrogance of believing that one has arrived, the cold shoulder of perceived normality. Maybe I do want seniors to read this, maybe it will open our eyes. And maybe it will push me to the best possible and predicable end: pleading with God again for strength and their souls.