The Tinkering Generation: What to Do With a Generation That Doesn't Know What to Do.

By Chris Loncar, Patrick Schatzline and Tyler Wolfe

The young adults of today are incredibly talented. Raised in an age of exponential access to information and countless life options, the largest group of young people to ever reach adulthood is about to take the stage. But with more options and opportunities available to them than ever before, why is there such a paralysis of decision-making and such a maturity crisis amongst our young people today?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9780986413216

Book preview

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CHAPTER ONE

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THE 2,000-YEAR-OLD TEENAGER

THE CRY FOR WISDOM

When my mother got married as a young eighteen-year-old woman, she knew exactly who she wanted to be. She considered being a wife and mother the highest of all callings. With great joy, she married my father and anticipated that one day she would have children. However, my mother could not conceive for many years, and after many trips to the doctor and various treatments, it looked as though she was unable to have children. She found herself in the position that many women in biblical history faced: Sarai (Sarah), Rachel, Hannah, and more. Just as He did for those women, the Lord came through and answered the cry of a barren womb. My mother and father would soon be expecting me to come into the world.

Throughout my years growing up, my mother would consistently remind me that while I was in her womb, she prayed that I would have wisdom. Even before salvation, I prayed for you to have wisdom, she would say to me. Many people don’t understand that, but I knew that if you possessed wisdom, you would make the right choices in life, including choosing Jesus.

I’ll never forget her telling me that. As it turns out, she prayed this for all of her children, and all five of us have been blessed with wisdom, Certainly, we are not perfect, but God has graced us with insight and discipline.

We are blessed with the grace of God to have this testimony, but I believe that it all started with a mother’s prayer for her children. A prayer that moved the hands of the Holy Spirit to form us according to her faith. So what am I saying? That my life is important? That it is the result of prayer and promise? Absolutely!

DESTINED FROM THE WOMB

Judges 13 begins the story of Samson. In this story, people are weary of their enemies and cry out for a deliverer, so God responds by telling a woman that she would have a son. The following passage illustrates this:

And the Angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, Indeed now, you are barren and have borne no children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. Now therefore, please be careful not to drink wine or similar drink, and not to eat anything unclean. For behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. And no razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb; and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.

JUDGES 13:3-5 (NKJV)

Even as God knitted Samson together, He did so knowing that He was forming him with the Nazirite calling necessary to deliver His people out of the hands of their enemies. This is the way He loves to work. When He wants to send revival, He sends deliverers in the form of babies. In addition to Samson, this has happened with many godly men and women in the Bible, such as: Moses in response to the people’s cry for a deliverer, Samuel in response to Hannah’s cry for a son who she pledged to dedicate to the Lord, John the Baptist in fulfillment of ancient prophecy, and even Jesus Himself! The same thing has happened with you and the young people you come in contact with. People prayed for a movement from God, so when He formed you, He had your purpose in mind. Before you were born, God looked at the needs of the world and heard the prayers of the saints and designed you. You were created for His pleasure, but you were also born with a mission.

YOU WERE ALWAYS MEANT TO BE

Many people confuse how they came into the world with why they came into the world. They assume that their purposes are tied to the means in which they came to be. In other words, if their births were unplanned, they view themselves as purposeless. Thus, there are countless people who have been born in a way that causes them to think they are an accident; perhaps they were the result of an affair, failed birth control, or they were born out of wedlock. The same thing happens with many adopted children, who usually come to wonder, Why didn’t my parents want me? and therefore, question the purpose of their births. But, your existence was not an accident. That may have been how you came into the world. But the why you came into the world is to fulfill a great purpose. God had always intended for you to be born, regardless of how it happened.

The story of Solomon gives us great insight into this truth, beginning with a promise from God to King David:

When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.

2 SAMUEL 7:12-16 (NKJV)

God told David that his son would continue his dynasty. But, as we would later come to find out, David had an affair with a woman named Bathsheba. In an attempt to cover up his sin, he murdered Uriah, her husband, and took her to become his wife. They lost this baby, but later Bathsheba would give David a son—Solomon. The same Solomon who God chose to be the next king of Israel and fulfill the promise that God gave to David.

Then Solomon sat on the throne of his father David; and his kingdom was firmly established.

1 KINGS 2:12 (NKJV)

This is all staggering when you consider that Solomon was the result of a bloodline that David’s sin started. Think about it. Had David lived righteously when he saw Bathsheba, then Solomon would never have been born. This implies something wonderful about God’s character. When God chose David, He took David’s future sin into account and made his son the next king, despite the sin that led to his birth. Solomon was not the result of a wrong decision. God did what only He could do: He used the tragic failures of David to bring about the son that He intended to be born all along. So, God fulfilled the next step of his covenant with David—the promise being that his line would rule forever by turning around his biggest failure and using it to bring a king into the world.

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.

ROMANS 8:28-30 (NLT)

This is truly our God. Remember that He knew you in advance—meaning He saw the scope of your life and all of the terrible decisions you would make, but He still chose you. God always intended your birth to take place, no matter how you came into the world.

You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

PSALMS 139:16 (NLT)

He takes the consequences of sin and turns it into the fruit of destiny!

You were like an abandoned wife, devastated with grief, and God welcomed you back, like a woman married young and then left," says your God.

ISAIAH 54:6 (MSG)

THE QUESTION TO YOUR ANSWER

So, if we are each called to a great purpose, then how do we find out what that is, let alone help young people discover what they are capable of? I have yet to meet someone who has never asked the questions, Why am I here? What is my purpose? They’re probably the most common questions of all mankind. And if these questions are universal to all human beings, then certainly their source runs deep within humanity. It’s as if these questions were instinctive, like we were born with this wondering. You long for it like your stomach longs for food or like your body and soul long for intimacy. These questions have forced many men and women into all sorts of adventures to find their answers. They have searched through careful study and ideas, through relationships and artistic pleasures, through much expenditure that brings materialistic happiness, through the deepest union of all human relationships, through traveling many lands and terrains. Yet, this search wounds people as these searches often end in failure. Personal hurt escalates with each failed relationship, flawed idea, and failed expectation, so much so that by the time they have waded through all the aforementioned quests, hope is lost that they will find what they seek. People wander for their whole lives, trying to find the answer to their elusive question of purpose.

The search must begin in the Word of God if we are really to answer the question of purpose. He is the one who instills value and purpose in His children, then works within people to give the world some answers. In observing the life of Jesus, the practical side of question of purpose is answered. In Mark 10:45, He states what He came to do: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. (NKJV). In Scripture, you do not usually find men and women of God complicating the simplicity of God’s will for their lives. Instead, you find them dealing with the needs of the world around them. Jesus is the ultimate example of this, as He simply followed His Father through the many places He traveled and changed the lives of the people in His way. Read the gospels and notice that He did not seem to go out of His way to do things that mattered. Wherever He went, hurting and lost people were on His path, and He met the needs of those people. He simply obeyed the Father and the extraordinary happened as a result of the ministry He did for those along His path. Jesus came to serve and to lay down His life, and as we emulate His example, we begin to live purposeful