So many young girls are getting pregnant and opting for lives as single mothers. This decision they are making for themselves is fraught with despair over broken relationships, entering into relationships too soon, uncertainty over housing as often they are victims of domestic abuse and have to leave the household for their own safety, and worry over feeding and clothing their children as well as themselves.
The inexperience and lack of wisdom forces them to make unwise decisions resulting in the lack of opportunities for their children to have a good education. Often they are around the mother’s unwise choice of friends who are a bad influence on the children. The children become victims of abuse because of the mother’s frustrations with her life or because of the mother’s substance abuse.
These problems occur as a result of having grown up in the very same circumstances which they are facing in their own lives. Because they never witnessed their mothers resolve their issues, they repeat the mother’s past and the mistakes that went along with it. They lack wisdom in turning their situations around. They choose the wrong men and enter too quickly into relationships with them.
There is a solution to this problem, and the problem involves salvation and entering into a relationship with Jesus the Christ. This has to be done at an early age and the church leaders have to make it clear what the Bible says about relationships, marriage, childrearing, and the duties of mothers and fathers. The church leaders also have to make it clear to teens what the consequences are of being wise in our own eyes are and not relying on the Lord. They need to be taught how to trust and wait on the Lord instead.
Teens who fail to turn to Christ because they are in the wrong circle of friends or cannot hear the Lord, are the ones who are described in Romans 3:11-20 who are unrighteous and remain under the law. They do not have the gift of God’s grace. They sin and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23), but because they have not come to Christ, they never experience God’s grace, and they continue to live a life of destruction. They do not confess their sins, nor do they forgive others who sin against them, and consequently, they experience such feelings as guilt, sadness, mourning, despair, desperation, discontent, frustration, sorrow, remorse, depression, shame, and repressed anger.
They are also the ones described in 2 Timothy 1-8, …”lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, , proud, blasphemers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, , traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasure, s more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness and denying the power thereof….”
These feelings build up to the point where they feel they need counseling, medication, and are living in denial of the consequences of their behavior and bad decisions. If they have the opportunity for salvation, because some Christian is praying for them, they eventually experience the joy of knowing Jesus and the joy of salvation. However, many continue on in their sin and seldom have the opportunity to know Jesus. They may not accept Christ into their hearts until much later in life or on their death beds, which is unfortunate.
However, our God is so merciful and may decide to take them out of their misery and call them home, after they have had a chance to accept Christ into their hearts. Then for the first time in their lives, they experience a peace that they never knew that they could have. It is truly a wonderful experience to watch, but one often wonders how their life could have been if they had come to Christ much earlier in life.
The saved Christian, on the other hand, experiences peace with God (Romans 5:1), and peace with themselves, experiences a joy which they never had, (John 15:11), experiences the love of the Father God which is unlike any kind of love they think they may have experienced in their lives, (Ephesians 3:19), expereineces a total change in his/her character, (Galatians 5:24), and looks much younger as a result of living a life of sanctification., (Matthew 5:16). Because they look to the Lord, their countenances radiate, (Psalm 34:5), they get along better with people, and they wait on the Lord, (Pslam 27:14), resulting in better decisions for their lives. They also recive blessings for following the commands of the Lord, (Deuteronomy, 28:1).
Our God gives us free will, (John 4:34), so that we can accept him when he attempts to get our attention, or we can continue on with our lives the way they are. Depending on how broken we are, we either turn to the Lord, or we follow our own way with no knowledge of the Lord, continuing in the way of destruction, (Philippians 3:19). Which would you rather have?
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