Monday, June 12, 2006

Tangle weed

This morning a very worried couple came and had breakfast with me. They're the parents of one of the youngsters that come round to White Stone - except he hasn't been around much recently and has spent more of his time drifting about smoking weed. They're wondering what has happened to their sweet-natured son and who this touchy, selfish, loafer that they have living with them is...

Putting our heads together, we concluded that we need to just hang in there, keep loving, tell him the truth (at those times when we sense an opening to receive it) and wait for maturity to kick in. We prayed for him. We don't understand, but God is bigger than us.

I'm going to try to arrange to spend a day striding the hills with him soon. No particular agenda, just me being me with him being him. And I trust that our hearts can touch and he can find a glimpse of the Kingdom again. Because I sense that he's a young man with a calling. I don't want to see him throw his life down the plughole.

We must trust God, but shouldn’t be naive - we can't assume the future will be rosy, if the present is rebellion, selfishness and passivity. What we sow, we reap. So I want this young man to find sanity and his will before his direction is so awry and his heart so hard that he finds it difficult to return.

On a wider level, yet again I reflect on the destructive power of cannabis. The subtle, omnipresent lie appears to be that weed isn't addictive and doesn't affect you: complete rot. It robs people of their will and clouds their mind and it very often leads into other drugs. It's poison.

Do teenagers have to go through these mad phases as they ‘find themselves’? I’ve strongly argued that they don’t (see April 26.06), but it does seem that the way our society goes more and more of them do.

God – heal our nation, rescue the next generation. Don’t let them perish. Teach us how to be the church that they can belong to wholeheartedly and live for; now – and in their future.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

james my heart aches also for the ones that are entangled in weed
I like you hear all the time that it is harmless what utter rubbish
I have seen it work its damage in many people it slowly eats away untill there is so much damage, so much parnoia, so much apathy, so little will.
But God has not brought this chap or any of the others to you with out a reason and he never ever begins a work that he does not intend finishing
I have seen it sap so many people and all i have to hold on to is the Knowledge that God knows the out come i do not
And beleive that these chaps that we are blessed with right now will be along side the next generation
we live in a throw away society and so many lost kids are turning to weed becasue they have been thrown away ( i know that is not the case with the chap that you refurre to) but here in the kingdom we have this wonderful opening to gather in the kids that the world have discarded as if they were yesterdays headlines and make them headliners in the kingdom where they will grow to be the princes that God has intended
We are so very blessed in warwickshire to be able to input and to love these precious jewels in zions crown and to demonstrate that they are not throw away kids but sons of the most high God
this chap and many others will be a hugh blessing to the future of whitestone because they will learn what being valued is about
keep going whitestone we are there with you

n0rma1 said...

Encouraging Dee, thanks.