Here we are again in the beginning of another school year with a great Summer season behind us and a colossal struggle ahead. It seems that every Fall, as the youth go back to school, we have to swallow the bitter pill of peer pressure and watch our young disciples struggle to survive spiritually.
For an example, consider M. He’s a bright young kid that lives in the San Jacinto neighborhood of Amarillo. This year is his senior year at Palo Duro High School. He has been active in our youth group since junior high and just recently has expressed God’s call on his life to serve in the ministry. Of course, serving God meant sacrificing the relationships that he had grown up with; friends and family who are involved in either serious gang activity or petty destructive crime.
Just this past year, his best friend has fathered two babies by two different girls and dropped out of school for good measure. His cousin with whom he has grown up, has just been released from prison only to try to recruit M. to claim the local “C.R.I.P. click”. M. had one friend to whom he was very close and who was involved in the youth group with him, but during the Summer, he ran away from home and fathered a baby with a 14 year old girl.
These gang bangers and thugs comprise his “sphere of influence”. Except for the occasional sexual solicitation from one of a dozen girls waiting in line to get pregnant, these are the only peers he can look to for cultural validation. I’m left to wonder what the chances really are that M. will live a decent life.
Can we give him enough of “whatever it takes to survive”? Or are we making beds in a burning house?
Me Personally 