peace . love . joy

A Youth-Centred Culture is a Backward Facing One.

That's one interesting statment that most certainly caught my attention! On first glace, it doesn't make much sense to me. Well, maybe my being part of church ministries serving the youths has something to do with my lack of understanding. But then comes the qualifier:

A society with such a culture is one where people honour who they used to be.

Look around you, I think this culture, this taken to reminiscing and romanticizing about the past, is very much alive in this world. Certificates, medals and achievements are laminated, framed and prominently displayed, plastic surgery becomes an answer to the aging body. In fact, I'd generalise even further to extend that honouring to the wider past. Museums are built to remember the dead and the deed, the young are educated in affairs of the past.

There isn't anything inherently evil about looking over the shoulder. For some, the past is simply an interesting string of events that occurred, a means for understanding the present, a reference that guides better-informed decisions of the future. I, myself, am rather fascinated by history, both the larger world history and my own personal past. But when does that celebration and commemoration become a worship, an idolisation, an obsession?

Why is it that while we always speak of "the future", and we write brilliant imaginative essays, draw fantastical pictures of a life yet to come, we tend to treat it as though it were something vague, distant and crawling?
And all the while leaving a foot in the door that we are peeking out from, the doorway of the past..

While there may be many reasons for this reluctance to move on, a significant keeper of this jail, I fear, is fear.

The fear of the unfamiliar comes head to head with the assurance of the familiar.
Which shall emerge triumphant?

We came from the past. It has finished, it is over, it cannot change any more than a satellite that has been knocked off its course in the vastness of the theoretically ever-expanding space. The truth is we find comfort in the unchangable, unchanging past. The glorious days of the life we once lived and the achievements we've made give us a reason to be proud of ourselves, to continue believing in ourselves when we fail. And that is something we hold very dear to our hearts, something we need.. Or is it?

The future is uncertain. We cannot tell what the future holds. And that is scary. Change! Change is scary. We, Christians, are called to greatness, to fulfil deeds and speak words and live lives so marvelous. "Yes! Amen!", we say, but then we go and forget all about it, drowning what is yet to come in the fermented vines of the past, cutting it out of the juicy pies of the present, reducing the could-be, would-be fantastic to boring mediocrity.

We fear letting go of who we were, what we held on to because we don't know who we will become, where we will end up. We don't know if we will like it.

We forget, then, that we have a God, that we belong to a God who 'works for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose', who is that 'Perfect Love' that 'casteth out fear', who 'arms us with strength', who is our 'shield', 'rock', 'fortress', 'deliverer', whose very Name is 'a strong tower'!

All too often we fear the future, we fear the unknown, we fear. But in that fear, O trembling one, realize that you do know the final permanent outcome, you do know the One who sees all, each minute detail and macro picture, you do know what will last for eternity.

Eternity.. such a strange and foreign concept..

But hey, our God is the God of eternity, no?
Our God is eternity.

Be brave and have faith:
Release the self you once knew;
The person that grew,
And become the you,
Spirit-bathed.

'Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave nor forsake you.'
~ Deuteronomy 31:6