⚓️Praying for a Rudderless Generation
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spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:16 amFather, send a revival among America’s young adults who have left the Church and are adrift and seeking. Draw them back to Yourself! We pray for a move of the Holy Spirit in our nation’s young adults. Ignite in their hearts the desire to seek You for meaning, purpose, healing, hope, and peace. Move in Your Church to seek the Holy Spirit’s help to create a safe yet uncompromising place for all to grow in faith. Please help us embrace diversity and approach the mental-health struggles of the emerging generations with wisdom and patience. In the magnificent name of Jesus. Let it be so! 🙏🏻❤️🕊
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:23 amAccording to a recent Harvard survey by the Graduate School of Education, depression and anxiety may impact young adults twice as much as teenagers. Approximately 36% of young adults said they struggle with anxiety, compared to 18% of teens. About 29% of young adults said they experience depression, compared to 15% of teens.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:24 amMental-health issues among teens due to the rise of social media, growing isolation, and inadequate sleep and exercise have received plenty of attention in recent years, but in-depth surveys among young adults are relatively new.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:27 amThe causes of this sharp rise in mental-health problems are tell-tale signs of their spiritual condition. Respondents to the survey shared specific challenges they face: ⬆️58% say they lack meaning and purpose, not knowing what to do with their lives; ⬆️56% worry about finances; ⬆️51% feel pressured to achieve; ⬆️45% have a sense that the world is falling apart; ⬆️44% lack meaningful relationships; ⬆️34% cite loneliness as a key factor in their depression.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:30 amMany cited social and political issues as a significant cause of men and woman. MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS: ⬆️42% blame gun violence; ⬆️34% are concerned about climate change; ⬆️30% cite incompetence or corruption among spiritual leaders.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:32 amRichard Weissbourd, lead author of the report and senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said in a press release concerning the survey that “far too many young adults told us that they feel on edge, lonely and directionless, and that they worry about financial security. Many are ‘achieving to achieve’ and find little meaning in either school or work
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:33 amMy wife and I have two daughters who belong to that generation. Both of them struggle with depression, anxiety, and ADHD. This began to shape their mental health in high school, grew worse in college, and is deeply ingrained in their current worldview.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:34 amDespite being raised in a loving Christian home and making professions of faith, they have turned their backs on what they call “organized religion” and see the Church as a place of judgment and rejection rather than of love and acceptance. They often speak of “existential dread” and cite climate change and economic mismanagement as making their future on this planet look bleak with no hope for a turnaround or improvement.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:35 amBased on conversations with them, I would add helplessness and bitterness as contributing factors to their depressed outlook. They feel powerless against big business and corrupt politicians, and that powerlessness angers them.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:36 amMost of their friends have similar issues and outlooks, and that is where they find greater acceptance and belonging than, say, in the Church. Somehow, it is a badge of honor to have one or more diagnosed mental disorders and to take medications for them.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:40 amThere is a direct relationship between this trend toward depression and anxiety in young adults and the fastest-growing religious worldview in America: the “nones.” According to leading “nones” expert Dr. Ryan Burged they encompass about 40% of young adults and consist of three subgroups: *atheists, *agnostics, and people with no particular way of worshipping God. He thinks that the biggest crisis we face in our country today is one of trust in what were once reliable institutions. Nones consider themselves spiritual, with over 90% saying they believe in the existence of God, but they don’t trust religious institutions or the systematic religious doctrines they hold.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:42 amTherein lies the problem. A departure from a clear-cut teaching on who God is and what the Bible says about salvation and how to live in relationship with God and each other leads to a lack of direction in life and spiritual insight into what is happening in the world today. It also leads to the loss of a moral compass and positive outlook.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:43 amDr. Burg “I think religion used to be the ultimate cynicism fighter. But now that fewer people are going to church, we’re not hearing those messages of hope. And I think we’re reverting back to some of our worst impulses. We don’t trust anyone. We don’t trust any institutions. We just fight for ourselves and mind our own business.”
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:45 amIn other words, the turning away from biblical Christianity and toward vague spirituality is producing a rudderless generation in the grip of mental and emotional disorders. The answer lies in a return to the Christian faith, but by understanding this in terms of a relationship with their Creator, and not membership in a religious institution.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:47 amYoung adults need to rediscover God as the one who loves, forgives, cares, directs, and shapes our thinking toward a concrete sense of identity and direction. They need to understand anew what godly love is: not tolerance but the unconditional embrace of God’s best for every human created in His image, which is repentance of sin, citizenship in the kingdom of heaven, and a godly life worked out in us by the Holy Spirit that gives us purpose, meaning, direction, vision, and faith for the future.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:49 amAt the same time, the Church needs to be revitalized into a Body of unconditional love that makes the presence and love of God real. Dr. B. suggests that churches need to get to know people who have left the church, establish relationships, listen to their stories, and hear the truth of what’s going on in their lives. In other words, fold them in from a place of listening rather than judgment. Young adults like my daughters often express their need for a place where they feel safe to struggle instead of feeling scrutinized and judged. When they don’t find that in any church, they look for it elsewhere. Providing a safe place for a diverse and struggling generation is hard to do in a church culture that has become increasingly homogenized. It requires a move of the Holy Spirit and intentional dependence on the love of God He pours out into our hearts to do that.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 3, 2023 at 4:52 am🙏🏻We can pray for this rudderless generation along two parallel lines: *for the Holy Spirit to turn their hearts back to a relationship with God; *for Him to help the Church become a safe and loving place to embrace and disciple them and thus restore their sense of meaning and purpose and regain hope and peace.
Humble PiPrayers: 1773Requests: 112
November 5, 2023 at 7:39 amWe are living in the great unraveling and its consequences are beginning to come back home to roost: Isaiah 3 . . . verse 26 “And her gates shall lament and mourn; empty, she shall sit on the ground.” All generations need repentance and like a proper marriage . . . need the washing of God through the water of His word… Ephesians 5:26. In the US public school prayer was banned in 1963, in 1970 abortion entered the court system in NY and became the law of the land, 22 Jan 1973. Our land has dissed God and polluted it with the shedding of the innocent blood of millions upon millions of babies not only here in the US but abroad. Pandora’s Box has been opened for over 50 years. By the amazing grace of God, 24 June 2022, Roe v Wade was repealed and abortion is no longer the right to kill the innocents across the nation but has been left in the jurisdiction of each individual state to decide. A major victory for the forces that stand for preserving the innocents. Our Father, these rudderless youths and survivors of our abortion holocaust are the result of Your standards being taken away and allowing immorality and the arrogance of people to take precedence over Your timeless holiness and scriptural standards that You have written and established in Your books of the law. Let us see the error of our ways then strongly repent and cling to the cross so that the grapes of Your wrath are not poured out in their fullest strength. Our wanton sin, tacit consent and failure to strongly preach the gospel throughout the whole earth cries out for justice and judgement. We humbly ask for grace, a deferral of impending wrath and a change of heart in us that the stony heart would be taken away and that You would grant us a heart of flesh, instead, tender, responsive and yielding to Your Holy Spirit with acts engaged in the inspired fruitful deeds of righteousness. Father, let the page be turned. Let us take leadership as King Josiah and be ruthless with sin, starting with our own lives and going after the idols around us. Let us be a people of power and influence. “It is not by power but by My Spirit,” says the LORD. Father, may we humble ourselves in Your sight O’ God. That You would heal us and our land. Let the enemies of Your throne and cross be scattered in Jesus’ name I pray. We cling to the hope of Your word in the midst of the wreckage of the progressive sins of our nation over the decades. Our Father, we ask that You would set us free and begin to reverse the curse in Jesus’ name. You are the LORD of the harvest. Let us having seeing eyes and hearing ears to be in step with what Your Holy Spirit desires. Please transform us and our nation(s) in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
spiritdoc1Prayers: 40935Requests: 2422
November 7, 2023 at 7:21 pmPraying for R. Generation. 🙏🏻
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