Divine Inclinations

Here’s a scenario: You’re an adult in a position to have a “positive influence” over a particular kid or even a group of kids. Maybe you’re a teacher or a coach. A youth minister. A big brother or sister. A mom or dad. The point is that God had placed you in a position to help a struggling teenager. And a lot of kids are struggling these days. Of course, kids have always struggled. Navigating the minefield that is adolescence has always been dangerous, but today the path through that minefield has become impossibly narrow and twisty and the dangers of a misstep have increased.

So, you decide to take the kid aside, sit the kid down, and give the kid the benefit of your experience. After all, you managed to navigate the adolescent minefield to become a competent adult. You’re well-intended. You’re sincerely concerned. But at the same time, you know your own ancient struggles (or at least your memory of those struggles) cannot be the quite same as the kid you are dealing with today. Your minefield was less explosive, and you seem to remember a discernible path with fewer twists and turns, and fewer dead ends through to the other side. Somehow, you understood that if you could stay on that path (and not stray), you’d make it through.

But today, many kids have been conditioned - by parents and teachers and the media and even by the church-to believe they are surrounded by implacable danger. Many have concluded that the only way to stay safe is to remain motionless, especially with so many adults standing outside the minefield screaming, “Halt. Don’t move.”

The severity and the implicit danger of each kid’s struggle will certainly vary, but every human being wrestles with uncertainty with insecurity, with betrayal, and disappointment. The good news is that some kids are in a family, school or church situation that allows uncertainty, insecurity, betrayal, and disappointment to work themselves out. They have a support system - a tribe in the current jargon - that provides a buffer against the emotional storms from which we’ve all needed shelter at one time or another.

They might be in a strong family that provides love and support with no strings attached. Or maybe they belong to a church that unjudgementally accepts their doubt. In the best case, they have a parent or a teacher or a coach who recognizes their unique qualities and talents (divine inclinations) and encourages the development of those qualities and talents without undue focus on the kid’s supposed deficiencies. It is precisely those kids who tend to survive and ultimately thrive after gingerly picking their way through the minefield laid down by the adult world.

But what about the kid who has strayed outside the buffer, the kid who has failed to live up to the expectations of a demanding parent? Their grades are inadequate. They didn’t make the team. They don’t have the right friends. They didn’t get into the right college. They have stopped going to church. I was a public school teacher for 23 years. I’ve coached high school athletes since the 1970s, and I have come to realize that kids are very good at hiding their struggles. They have learned that if they put up the correct front and don a convincing mask, then everything will be okay, but at the same time, kids have an inborn sense that the front is cursory and that the mask does not fit.

It’s easy to recognize a kid whose struggles have become pathological, obviously harmful, a kid who is so far down the road to self-destruction that their delusion (and that’s what it is, delusion, usually fed by adult misdirection) may seem irreversible. They stop caring about the safe path out of the minefield; they stop watching their step: Drug use. Self-harm. Dropping out or running away. Dangerous sexual behavior. All those things are obvious, but intervention is possible as long as someone takes the time to unjudgementally pay attention.

What about the kid who is on the precipice? The young man or young woman who has looked over the edge, but has not taken that first step into the abyss of depression or withdrawal? How does an adult in a position (and with the inclination) to help identify that kid?

The signs are subtle. In almost every case, something that seems trivial is significant. For example, I had a student who was pleasant in class. She was smart, though not brilliant, and personable. And most of the time she was cooperative, though a little too fond of conversing with her friends when I was trying to explain what I thought was some essential thematic element of some obscure novel or poem that the kids in my class pretended to care about. But occasionally, and with some regularity, she’d show up to my class, which met right after lunch, just a little less bouncy, just a bit less “involved” with her friends. I’d had her in class the year before and she had been an enthusiastic, if not particularly fast, member of my cross-country team. I’d gotten to know her parents who never missed a race and who seemed to be supportive despite the fact that she often finished well back in the junior varsity race. During conferences they were interested to know how she was doing in class, but also unconcerned that she was not a stellar student. In other words, there were no overt signs that she was on the verge of a misstep as she navigated the minefield.

The first sign that I noticed was that she did not turn out for the cross-country team. I asked him about it and she told me she didn’t have time, and that she needed to focus on her schoolwork. I knew about her academic record, and she was about as successful in the classroom as she was on the racecourse. But that had never been an issue before. My natural inclination at that point was to praise her for her new-found dedication to her schoolwork.

But something stopped me, and I asked, “Why the change of heart.”

Her answer was by rote. Typical. Oft repeated. Rehearsed. “Everyone tells me I can do better. That I have to do better if…” I stopped her. I knew what she was going to say… If I want to get into a good college.

I wanted to ask her “Why?”Not why she had to get into a “good college”, but why did she believe she had to get into a good college and why did she believe she had to give up other things that mattered to her to do so?

Often, we use individual verses of the Bible as they are mere aphorisms. Citations and quotations are pulled out of context to make a point or to bolster an argument. The genius of the Bible is that much of its wisdom is contained small passages, individual verses, and even single words. On one level the power of the Bible is the power of aphorism. Generalized and profound truth does not require a lot of explanation. For example, Malachi 2:8. “But you have turned from the way and by your teaching, you have caused many to stumble.”

Okay. What follows may be a bit of a stretch, but what I am going to attempt to do is turn the normal practice of giving a kid a Bible verse intended to help them navigate their way through the minefield back on itself. I’m going to encourage people in a position to influence a kid to reconsider the solutions they are proposing.

Bear with me here.  “…by your teaching, you have caused many to stumble.”

I know exactly what motivated my student’s decision to forego her sport and even her relationship with certain of her peers. One or more adults in her life had at first mentioned, then emphasized, and finally insisted that she must sacrifice all that in the name of a dubious future they claimed could only be served by getting into the “right” college or university.

I do not doubt for a second that the advice given to this girl was sincere, well-intended, and based firmly on one or more adults’ conviction that the “right” college was the best avenue for a successful life. I’d given out the same advice countless times to entire classrooms full of kids, some of whom probably trusted what I had to say. The problem is that I was wrong, and so were the adults (teachers or others) who had advised this girl to focus on her schoolwork at the expense of everything else. Looking back, I can see that when I gave that kind of advice, I was doing a disservice to the legitimate desires (again, divine inclinations) of individual kids, leading them directly into the minefield.

Which brings me to Matthew 9:35.“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.”

Let me approach this verse in reverse. “…every disease and sickness.” The sickness and disease that a struggling teenager may be battling is not likely to be a physical ailment, although there may be physical manifestations.I wrestled with the following assumption for years, but I now accept it as fact: A struggling teenager will continue to struggle as long as the guidance they are given by trusted adults - very often with the best of intentions - leads them down a path that runs in the opposite direction of their God-given (and therefore sacred and divine) talents and inclinations.

I believe every kid has a gift from God. Every kid has something he or she is better at than almost everyone else. The problem is that too often, influential adults do not honor or value that gift. The most positive influence an adult can have on kids who struggle is to help them find their own path based on what they are good at or are attracted to and then guide them in that direction.