Maybe you’ve seen videos over the last few years of late-night services on college campuses, where worship lingers longer than planned and students line up by the hundreds to be baptized. They’ve used every source of water available: campus fountains. Borrowed pools. Nearby lakes. They’ve even spread tarps across the backs of pickup trucks.
As water splashed, students in their late teens and early twenties declared to their friends and classmates what they’ve come to believe: that Jesus is Lord, that He is their deliverance from destructive habits, depression, trauma, anxiety, isolation, and pressure to perform. Their testimonies make clear that God has not only saved them from hopelessness but has saved them into the fullness of peace, identity, belonging, and purpose in Christ.
Social media has tried to capture it all but can’t keep up. It happens again and again. Another late-night service goes long. Another dorm-room Bible study begins. Another college student introduces her whole sorority to Jesus.
The movement continues. Even still, the tidal wave of faith among the younger generation is just a drop. It’s a ripple that points to a rising tide. A small current in a larger stream.
And it’s all evidence that God is on the move.
Welcome to the Real World
Some of those same students who met Jesus while in college are graduating this month. For the last few years, they’ve been swimming in the depths of hope and joy as they’ve walked out new life in Jesus. They’ve worshiped with abandon in the middle of campus. They’ve stayed up past midnight not just to cram for exams, but to open their Bibles with friends. This summer they’ll pack up their dorm rooms and move into apartments, leaving discipleship communities they’ve depended on and entering cities where they don’t yet know a single soul.
You may be one of the family members—the mom, grandma, aunt, or older sister—who is throwing the graduation party, packing the boxes, and helping your student move into the next stage of life. Or you may be someone who will get to intercept them down the line, as they accept their first post-grad job in your office or show up at the welcome table of your church.
The question is: how will you receive them?
There’s a subtle temptation to watch for as these young believers step into their next season—the impulse to meet their wide-eyed optimism with a knowing smirk or to respond to their enthusiasm with a laugh that says, “Just wait until real life hits.”
Yes, “real life” will come for them—early mornings, hard bosses, tight budgets, and losses no class can prepare you for. They’ll meet resistance. They’ll feel lonely. Some will question what once felt so clear.
You may be tempted to buy the card or candle that jokes, “Congrats! Welcome to the real world,” and mean it as a warning, a way to say, “Good luck, kid. It’s all downhill from here.” But picture once again the twenty-two-year-old believer who just gave her life to Jesus, dripping in post-baptism pool water, excited about what the rest of her life with Him will include.
That girl doesn’t need you to frame adulthood and spiritual maturity with cynicism. She needs you to look her in the eyes, tell her the truth, then walk with her along the path toward glory.
Take the Long View
This generation isn’t fragile. They’ve grown up in a world that’s experienced a global pandemic, natural disasters, school shootings, economic hardship, civil unrest, a mental health epidemic, and far more. They’re not immune to suffering, and they’ve already had to wrestle with questions that are hardly new to our modern age.
Thousands of years before their colleges existed, the prophet Habakkuk faced the harsh realities of the “real world,” living in an age of crisis and corruption. His short book begins with, “The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw” (1:1 ESV). Some literal translations say, “The burden that Habakkuk the prophet saw.” The chapters that come after are a dialogue between him and Yahweh.
“Why do you force me to look at injustice?” Habakkuk asked the Lord, “Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Oppression and violence are right in front of me. Strife is ongoing, and conflict escalates” (1:3).
God replied, but not with the answer Habakkuk was expecting (1:5–11). Habakkuk’s vision was nearsighted, looking to the immediate crises around him and his people. They were missing God’s larger plan because their worldview wasn’t wide enough.
The Lord was already at work and His plan was moving forward, but it was unfolding on His terms and timeline. Habakkuk had questions, and he expressed his protests and prayers of lament. He saw the brokenness of the world and wrestled with what appeared to be contradictions between God’s justice and His actions. Along the way, he learned what it means that “the righteous one will live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4).
Ultimately, what Habakkuk both needed and received from God was a “larger and slower worldview, one that allowed for God’s slow-moving justice.”1 It’s what this younger generation needs as well—and they’ll need you to help them develop it. They don’t need cynicism disguised as wisdom; they can see the injustices of this world without someone snidely pointing them out. What they need is encouragement to nurture deep, enduring faith—faith that will carry them through their twenties, into their thirties, and for the rest of their lives.
Model this for them. Show them what it means to lament, and what it means to lift your eyes, to take the long view, and to live anchored in the future promises of God. The Lord did this for Habakkuk. As He spoke against the arrogance and oppression of the nations, He gave Habakkuk (and us) a promise:
The earth will be filled
with the knowledge of the LORD’s glory,
as the water covers the sea. (Hab. 2:14)
This is the “real” world that young and old Christians alike will inherit: one saturated with the presence and purpose of God, where knowledge of His glory fills every corner of creation. It’s not a poetic vision; it’s a promised future.
It’s also the world graduates will walk into, one they’ve already gotten a glimpse of. Help them to keep looking for evidence that God is at work, even in the midst of hard soil or barren land. Teach them to look back on the ways they’ve already seen streams of His faithfulness, to expect more, to participate in His work, and to praise Him every time they see waves of His goodness going forth into all the world. Give them a living example of a woman who looks ahead not with weariness or a jaded heart, but with all the hope in the world.
Blessed be his glorious name forever;
the whole earth is filled with his glory.
Amen and amen. (Psalm 72:19)
Welcome to a Glorious Future
This generation needs you.
They need people who love them enough to listen to what they’re processing and to graciously guide them to the truth of Scripture. They need your testimony—to know that you’ve walked through hard things and found God faithful. They need someone who doesn’t roll their eyes when they talk about changing the world, and someone who doesn’t dismiss their passion for justice, compassion, or evangelism.
They need someone who takes the long view, who looks forward to the promises of God that will soon be fulfilled, and who hasn’t forgotten what it means to have real hope in the midst of this hard world. If you’ve lost sight of it, ask the Lord to do a new work in your heart, and allow discipleship to flow both ways. Let this generation’s wonder rekindle yours. Let their hunger for Jesus stir your heart again. Let their passion for God’s glory awaken places in your soul that have grown dry.
Then extend a new invitation:
Welcome to the real world . . . where God is still moving.
Welcome to the real world . . . where He’s transforming lives.
Welcome to the real world . . . where the best in Christ is always yet to come.
1 James Bruckner, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2004), 235.
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