Look for ‘the look'

“The look.” If you’re a parent, a teacher or a mentor, you’ve seen it on young faces.

I’m not talking about the exasperated eye roll or the heavy-lidded look of indifference. I’m talking about that yearning stare into the middle distance — the look of someone in search of direction.

If you’re a disciple maker or mission mobilizer, look for that look.

It’s not that hard to find. Don’t let all the gloom and doom about Millennials leaving the church (or never coming in the first place) get you down. There are plenty of teens, college students and young adults — Christian or not — searching for deeper purpose in their lives and eager for someone to point them in the right direction.

I’ve encountered lots of them. And research about faith, work and “calling” among American adults backs me up. Last year the Barna Group reported that three out of four adults are “looking for ways to live a more meaningful life. Whether such meaning is found in family, career, church, side projects or elsewhere, these are all questions of vocation — that is, the way in which people feel ‘called’ to certain types of work and life choices. … [T]hese questions remain as strong as ever for millions of Americans.” 

Christians have an additional question: “What does God want me to do with my life?”

According to the Barna Group’s report, “only 40 percent of practicing Christians say they have a clear sense of God’s calling on their lives. Christian Millennials are especially sensitive to this divine prompting — nearly half (48 percent) say they believe God is calling them to different work, yet they haven’t yet made such a change.”

What’s stopping them? Fear of stepping out of the safety zone, perhaps. Finances, student debt or conflicting commitments and priorities might be holding them back.

Then there’s the “quarter-life crisis” — that anxious and increasingly extended period between completing school and hitting a stride, professionally and/or relationally, when 20-somethings wander in a bewildering world of countless options and no firm decisions. It’s not a new thing. Bob Dylan captured it perfectly 50 years ago in his classic song, “Like a Rolling Stone”:

How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

But maybe all many 20-somethings lack is a nudge, an encouraging word, a coach in their corner. Christians in particular crave “more direction and discipleship when it comes to the theology of calling, especially as it relates to work,” the Barna report found.

Many young Americans are following a multi-career path or working multiple jobs, whether by choice or economic necessity. The traditional 40-hour week for a single employer has changed for millions into a series of temporary jobs, freelance assignments, passion projects and startups. It’s harder to make ends meet, but the new environment affords the flexibility for people to seek something more than just a paycheck.

“A new kind of economy is taking shape, in part because it would seem today’s workforce has decided for itself that making a living is not enough if that living lacks purpose, meaning and impact,” said the Barna report. “[A]dults today are deeply concerned with getting work ‘right’ — nearly six out of 10 say they want to make a difference in the world.”

This represents a huge opportunity for Christians who want to lead a rising generation toward God and His global purposes. The secular façade that covers American culture is just that — a façade. Young adults are just as hungry for God today as ever, whether they realize it yet or not, and they’ll never know peace and purpose until they follow Him. Seek them out. If you can’t find them at church, look for them in the workplace. Join a school mentoring program.

They’re out there, hoping for a guide. Don’t keep them waiting.

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Hope for the hopeless

Listen to an audio version of this post at http://media1.imbresources.org/files/68/6881/6881-38908.mp3

Several years ago I wrote about my friend George. Nice guy. Sincere. Loved to joke around and play basketball. Deeply depressed.

Eventually, he hanged himself.

On the last day of his life, the only words George managed to utter to his father, who later found his body, were these: “No hope. No hope. No hope.”

By the year 2000, suicide had become one of the major causes of death worldwide among men and women ages 15-44, according to a World Health Organization report. Many suicides, the report stated, occur “during periods of socioeconomic, family and individual crisis.”

It’s hard to live, in bad times or good, without hope. You certainly won’t find it on the shiny shelves of postmodern culture. Phony substitutes and countless distractions, yes. Real hope, no. Most hopeless people keep struggling without taking their own lives, but they see little light in their darkness.

Medication and treatment can help the clinically depressed. At the end of the day, however, no therapy or drug, no self-improvement program, no political or social movement, no philosophy, no economic plan or number of possessions can bring hope to someone who has none.

Only the resurrection of Jesus Christ offers real hope — not just to His followers but to all the hopeless people of the world.

The pop atheists of our day want to bury the idea of Christ’s physical, historical resurrection once and for all, along with its impact through the ages. The world would be much better off, they say, if the “legend” of Jesus rising from the dead had never gotten started. That would mean no churches, of course, but also no schools or universities for the masses, no books or literacy, no hospitals or charities, no freedom for slaves, no great classics of Western music and art and literature.

More than all these put together, it would mean no hope for humanity.

Handel’s Messiah, originally an Easter event, celebrates Christ’s birth, death and resurrection. After conducting it for the last time in 1759, the ailing and nearly blind composer acknowledged the ovation by saying, “Not from me — but from heaven — comes all.” He expressed the desire to die on Good Friday “in the hope of rejoining the good God, my sweet Lord and Savior, on the day of His resurrection.” He died on Holy Saturday.

Some years ago, a woman who had never been out of China attended a performance of Messiah on her first trip abroad. As the last triumphant notes faded away, she turned to her hosts, trembling with exaltation and urgent curiosity.

“I must know,” she pleaded. “Who were they singing about?”

Messiah is a monument of Western music, to be sure. But if Christ is a part of only the Western cultural tradition, why are many of His most ardent followers in the East? Why are the fastest-growing church movements found in Asia? Why have Koreans become the world’s most determined missionary senders? Why are Muslims in many places around the globe seeking out the Gospel after having dreams about a man they identify as Jesus?

At Easter, local believers in a part of the Arab world celebrate the risen Savior and seek to share Him with their families and friends. They ask Him to soften hearts and minds to the truth that God not only gave His Son as a sacrifice, but raised Him from the dead and conquered death. They pray that gifts of Scripture, Easter parties, even dreams will open the door to sharing hope with unbelieving Arabs.

And they do this in places where persecution — particularly of Muslim-background followers of Christ — is increasing daily. They know something many of us in the traditional centers of Christianity have forgotten or rejected: The risen Christ is the hope of ages, the only hope for the world.

Lift up your eyes to the hills from whence cometh your help — and your hope.

“Truth is an arrow and the gate is narrow that it passes through,” sang Bob Dylan after his resurrection encounter with Christ. “Surrender your crown on this blood-stained ground. Take off your mask. He sees your deeds. He knows your needs — even before you ask.

“How long can you falsify — and deny — what is real?”