#EN2010 Notes: A Matter of Age

One of the many things I noticed during the EN2010 World Conference was the age group of the people who preached. I was especially struck with Jackie, the guy from the restricted country that I mentioned in my previous post. He was 19 when he met Jesus. When he came up the stage and the camera zoomed into a close up, I quipped to my victory group leader who was sitting next to me, “looks like he’s just in his early thirties!”

Jackie is indeed in his early thirties. And when I think about it, I can’t help but think of my own age and how many of my years were spent for personal pursuits in relation to the number of years I spent pursuing the things of God for my life. I also thought of the general idea among Filipino youth about not getting too serious about God in this age bracket. For many people, college years and the first few years at work are the time to get wild and be irresponsible. It’s the time to explore the world, experiment with lots of stuff and get crazy.

Last Sunday, Pastor Jojo Henson from Malaysia mentioned in passing how he was saved at the age of 20 and went into full time ministry at 22. He told us how the enemy has been telling him while he was in his twenties that he was too young to serve God. Now that he’s past forty, the enemy is trying to tell him that he is too old to make a difference. Of course the lies of the enemy sounds very ridiculous but it gets really intimidating if you start listening to it. The Lord reminded me of 1Timothy 4: 12: Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.

While the world thinks it’s okay to be irresponsible when you’re young, the truth says otherwise. Young people need to make a choice on who to listen to. Some people sleepwalk through their younger years until the hard truths of adulthood jolt them to their senses. Others make wise decisions even when they’re too young to be right. But when you are on your thirties and you look back and try to make sense of what you’ve done so far, it is never fun to realize that others have already done so much while you were busy trying to look cool.