To All Christian Young Adults

Transitioning to Adult Life in the Secular World upon Graduation from Your Christian Bubble

Lessons Learned Via Hindsight in My Early 20’s

The following comes from a short speech I delivered to a group of graduating one-year Bible college students. What follows is an acknowledgement of the ways the world will seek to entangle us as we leave our sheltered Christian bubbles. In our adjustment to adult life, we ourselves become solely responsible for our own schedules, responsibilities, and discipline.

First, an exhortation:

Stay self-disciplined in your study of the Bible.

Your Bible college or youth group was a structured and supervised transition period into the rest of your adulthood. No one is going to make you read your Bible. If you don’t commit to a reading plan, you won’t read your Bible and the values of the world will gradually creep into your life. You fight this creep of worldliness by remaining faithful in prayer, by committing yourselves to reading the Bible, by faithfully participating in church, by surrounding yourselves with Christian friends, and best yet, by engaging in active ministry.  Ministering to others is where you’re going to experience the Holy Spirit most powerfully. Do not stop doing any of these things.

Read Christian books, continue to inundate yourselves with Christ centered thinking, especially when you enter the culture of the secular workplace or college. You will surely face the pull to want to fit in. Keep yourselves inundated with Christian teachings. Don’t unintentionally put up a wall between yourselves and God by taking in the constant influx of secular media, while giving little or no time to godly instruction. 

Second, an opportunity:

While marriage is a great blessing and I myself have never been happier than since I married my incredible wife, it is also a fact that singleness is a great opportunity. 

Do not worry about finding a spouse. God has a way of making things happen and providing for you in the most wonderful of ways. With that said, be patient, accepting that many of you are probably not ready for marriage in the near term. This may be a challenging reality to accept.  Continue to improve yourselves as God improves you so that you will become ready for marriage. Men, become ready and able to wash your wives in the word and to be a humble, loving, and considerate partner to your wives. Women, likewise, learn to be humble and prepare yourselves to raise children in Christ. 

Make the most of your time especially while you are single!

The next several years are going to pass very quickly. Don’t waste your time complaining or being unhappy. Instead, acknowledge that in your early 20s, you will have the most free time you will ever have to serve God’s kingdom. Responsibilities will only pile up from here. Make good use of your time. Seek His will and participate in the service of others in whatever capacity He has given you grace. 

Cooperate to your utmost ability with God’s work of sanctification in your life.

Commit to a career path and trust God. Seek God’s wisdom through prayer in this matter (and also in all other matters as you pray about all things).

Transitioning a bit,

The Holy Spirit put the following VERY strongly on my heart as I wrote all this out and that is to take to heart HOW DEEPLY GOD LOVES YOU. 

If you don’t believe me when I tell you God loves you deeply, then I must ask you, do you believe the gospel? Think about the intense effort Jesus put forth to save you…. He didn’t have to do any of that. He could have destroyed and restarted humanity with a new innocent Adam and a new innocent Eve. Instead, He paid for your sins out of His deep love for you because He wanted YOU. If you believe this gospel, then you are saved, and what I said is almost too wonderful to behold, that Jesus loves you specifically and more than you can understand. 

May God continue to bless you abundantly in your pursuit of Christ. 

Additional thoughts:

Jesus is your friend and counselor. He is SO faithful. He will never leave you. Trust in Him and seek Him always. 

Have faith that God has or will make you capable of fulfilling whatever duties He has given you. 

And finally, get in the habit of acknowledging when your thoughts are rooted in lies and HOLD EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE TO CHRIST.