The Sunday Mail
GREETINGS in Jesus’ name. I pray you are well this week as we draw towards the end of the year with some deep in the exam season.
As always, our prayers are with you and we believe that we will be rejoicing when the results come out.
As we enter the festive season, we need to remember that the devil our enemy is on the prowl and is doing all he can to destroy young lives.
From the beginning of the year, newspapers have been littered with stories of young people who lost their lives in various unfortunate incidents.
Some died due to substance abuse, others died in road accidents while some died in senseless violence.
The other day during a prayer meeting, we put the lives of the young people of Zimbabwe before God.
Peter says in 1 Peter 5 v 8: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”
So be sober! Hopefully we can talk a little bit more about being sober in the coming weeks. The alarming levels of self-hate amongst the youth of today is becoming more and more disturbing.
Statistics are showing that the HIV rate is higher in the 15 to 30 age group. We have young people hooked on bronco, mbanje, alcohol, etcetera. Premarital sexual relations and the so called “small houses” are now becoming a norm (God forbid).
This is the sad state of affairs that we find our generation in. Undoubtedly, some will blame this on the financial situation and the fact that many young people are jobless and have turned to these immoral activities as a way of reliving stress.
Yes, times are tough but abusing yourself is not the solution. This is the lie that the devil is using to steal your life from you.
In Judges 6, we find a young man in a similar situation. Life was tough in Israel, the country was constantly being invaded by the Midianites and the Amalekites and the economy was in shambles.
The young men and women of the day had to resort to unscrupulous things to get by. Some had left the ways of God and given up the faith while others were now rampant criminals. This is where we find a young Gideon. We find him hiding in a wine press threshing wheat. His situation was similar to that of many young people of today who have had to put away their qualifications and become illegal foreign currency dealers or airtime vendors.
There are our sisters who have forgotten the dreams that they had a few years back and are being pressured into abusive relationship in order to survive.
Whilst Gideon was in the wine press, an angel appeared. Judges 6 vs 12 says: “And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.”
Despite his sorry state and cowardice, God saw him as a mighty man of valour.
The same applies to you, despite your current state or what you have done, the plan of God for your life is secure in Him.
When God looks at you, He does not see you as the world does or as you might see yourself. Rather, He sees you as He pre-purposed you – as a mighty man and woman of valour. The challenge is that we let the sad conditions around dictate who we are and as a result our lives begin to look so bleak and hopeless. We begin to identify ourselves with our surroundings and all of a sudden there is no longer a bright future but only despair and pain. Hence people end up abusing themselves in various ways (drugs, sex, violence, alcohol). Do not internalise your surroundings, God still has an amazing destiny for you.
One young man realised this and turned around for the better. He had grown up in a wealthy family and asked for his inheritance when he thought he was mature enough to take care of himself.
Guess what? He squandered all of it on girlfriends, alcohol, gambling and basically a cavalier party lifestyle. It did not take long for him to hit hard times. All of his friends abandoned him, he had nowhere to live and nowhere to go. He ended up doing any job that came his way, he even had to take care of pigs.
Things got so tough that he could eat whatever the pigs were eating. All that was required of him was to come back to his senses, decide to leave the unhealthy lifestyle, swallow his pride and go back to his father’s house. We all know this story, the young man was the prodigal son in Luke 15.
Therefore, you also need to come back to your senses, acknowledge your failures and ask for forgiveness where need be. Pick yourself up, shake yourself out of that frame of mind. There is more to you than meets the eye.
That is all for now. God bless.
Tinashe Zinyemba is a pastor with New Life Covenant Church. Email feedback at [email protected]
