Young Man Syndrome

Exhibit A: There's a young man who has grown up in the church. This young man has personally accepted and followed the Christian faith, even to the point of defending it when necessary. During the initial university years, this young man reviews his belief and, after some struggle, decides to walk away from God entirely.

Exhibit B: There is a young woman who has grown up in the church. She develops a serious relationship with a non-Christian guy and, combined with a busy university workload, eventually stops going to church. She is still a Christian by name, but rarely impacts the world for Christ.

Exhibit C: A young 21-year old man is involved with a small group at church. During this time, he re-evaluates his Christian life and decides that his early years as a teenager were not very useful. He decides to devote himself fully to discipleship of other young men.

It absolutely amazes me to see how consistant this is. Almost every single young person that I know eventually reaches a critical stage somewhere between the age of 18 and 25. They re-evaluate their life and their beliefs and either become fully committed to or walk away from God.

I was the young man in Exhibit C and two of my closest friends were the previous two examples. I have a lengthy list of examples that demonstrate this crucial point in the lives of Christian youth.

There's a funny side to this. If the young person concludes that they were wrong for so many years growing up, if they conclude that they were seeing things in an immature fashion, why do they decide that they can now make the 'mature and correct' decision? How can they be wise if everything leading up to the decision was unwise? A hundred wrongs can make one right?

It's the Young Man Syndrome. We're sure that we're right, though we agree that we were wrong for so long. And not only that, but we'll look for any opportunity to explain our wisdom to other people.