When I was in high school, I was like the poster child for a teenage Christian youth group kid. I grew up in a healthy Christian family, and was active in a church that taught about following Jesus. I was the one who invited friends to weekly outreach events and encouraged my peers in their faith. I led Bible studies for those younger than me and was even voted the president of my youth group, which still to this day I am not sure what that meant. I was the captain on the church league basketball team and received a plaque from my church, just before graduation, that read “Tommy McGregor, Most Outstanding Senior.” I was that guy and I played the role well. Jesus said in Matthew 5 that we are called to be the light of the world and we are not to cover our light but rather let it shine brightly for others to see. I was a bonfire of a light in high school attracting my friends to gather around, make snores, and sing Kumbiya, all in the name of Jesus.
I remember getting ready to go to college and thinking that I would just continue to do what I had done in high school, in regards to my faith. I had gotten the most outstanding award for goodness sake. If anyone was prepared for this challenge, it had to be be me. Looking back now, my life in high school was like rafting down the rapid white waters of a river. I didn’t have to paddle very much, just hang on and enjoy the ride. Living out my faith was easy when I was in high school because it had yet to be challenged.
I spent the first three years of college searching for who I was. I had been jolted from a life of confidence in high school to one of insecurity in college. I had community, just not a healthy one. I made decisions, just not wise ones. I formed an identity, just not one that reflected a city on a hill. Just after taking my final exam to end my junior year in college, I was packing up my dorm room to go home for the summer. I remember loading up a couple bags of clothes, some boxes of books, and a few hundred CDs (that’s how we rolled in the early 90s). As I unloaded my bookshelf with textbooks and such, I reached for the next book and grabbed my old Bible. This was the same Bible that I had taught a middle school Bible study from. These were the same pages that I had read in my own weekly small group and included all the underlines, notes, and inserts from years of growth prior to college. I paused as I felt the worn leather on the binding of this sacred book for the first time in a while. That moment brought me back emotionally to a place of direction, dedication and devotion to Jesus and a desire to follow Him and His Word. I took a break from packing to reminisce on the contrast of my life from then to now. I had not gone wild and crazy in college by most accounts, but I had certainly forgotten to keep my relationship with Jesus as the foundation on which I thought I had stood so firmly on in high school. I remember thinking that I liked the guy I was then, more than the one I had become. Three years had passed since my high school graduation, and I felt like I had just uncovered my light for the first time since that moment.
So, the question that I have asked myself a million times… is “How does a Christian teenager, with visible growth in his faith, struggle to the point of declining in maturity once he leaves home after graduation?”
What do you think? Comment below your answer to that question. Also, if you want to share in a few words how your own transition after high school was, I would love to hear it.