Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
2 Corinthians 4:16 (NIV)
Around our house there is a lot of conversation about generations. In our company’s customer research we are regularly discovering that our clients’ customers are segmented into very different generational groups who have very different expectations and preferences. Companies who don’t recognize and address the differences risk losing business. Personally, I fear that if the institutional church does not recognize and address the differences we may risk losing souls.
For several years now, Wendy and I have followed the writing of Dr. Jonathan Haidt. He has been at the forefront of understanding the negative effects that smart phones have had on children. He was also among the first to cry the warning of what closing schools during COVID was doing to our children. He is also seeing how these things are creating differences in generations of children. Haidt has signed on a young woman named Freya India to his team. She has written an amazing post about Gen Z that everyone should read about why Gen Z will not look back with nostalgia at their own childhood, but rather they are nostalgic about the childhood of previous generations that they never had.
What’s fascinating to me as I ponder the emerging generation of young people is that they are arguably the product of the most blessed, advanced, and affluent society in the history of human civilization. Nevertheless, they are experiencing record levels of anxiety and depression.
This came to mind this morning as I read today’s chapter in which Paul shares with the believers in Corinth the troubles and sufferings that he and his companions have been experiencing as they tirelessly share the message of Jesus with others and lovingly concern themselves with the Corinthians’ well-being. Paul describes his daily realities as “hard pressed on every side…perplexed…persecuted…struck down.” Despite these external physical hardships, Paul says that they are “being renewed inwardly” daily.
As I read this, I thought what a contrast this is to the description that Haidt and India provide us with our current younger generation. Outwardly, it would appear that they are outwardly blessed with affluence, education, technology, safety, security, and health in ways and in levels that no generation before them has ever experienced. Nevertheless, they are inwardly wasting away. In today’s chapter Paul calls his sufferings “treasure” inside the “jar of clay” that is his body. It reminded me of a contrasting reality Ms. India wrote about recently:
I worry because young women like me were raised with only one vision of hell. Now our only nightmare is being restricted by religion, by a relationship, or burdened by responsibilities. But what if hell is also the opposite? What if hell isn’t the faith that makes you stay, but the doubt that makes you leave? What if sometimes the devil is not the voice keeping you trapped, but the one whispering that you are being restricted, wronged, held back—deserve a fresh start? Have we ever considered that the most dangerous ideology might not be the one asking us to have faith through hard things but the one training us to doubt what is good, to see something that should be treasured as a trap?
In the quiet this morning, my heart and mind are pondering how much all of us in this affluent, technologically advanced, safe, secure, and healthy modern reality are suffering the same malady as Gen Z, just not to the same extreme. Outwardly we appear to be healthy, wealthy, and blessed. Factually, we are. Is our “inward” reality the same?
Jesus repeatedly told His disciples that the requirement of being His follower was selflessness, sacrifice, service, and even suffering. For almost every one of His twelve disciples that included suffering excruciating death. It will be the same for Paul. Yet, Paul says his inward reality is Life and love that is renewed daily and flourishing.
God’s ways are not our ways.
As Paul put it, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
I’m in daily need of this reminder.
Where are my eyes fixed this morning?
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
