I listen to my music way too loud, constantly think I know more than my parents, and sleep every night with Proactive’s refining mask smothered all over my forehead. Ah, the joyous teenage years. Yes, I believe that I can confidently say that three problems have plagued teens since Cain and Able turned thirteen: rebellion, self-exaltation and acne.
The thing is, I’m not sure that all these problems are actually… well… problems. (Except the pimples, of course.) There’s a time and place to be rebellious and a little over-confident. Now, I can admit that I’m no real rebel. The most rebellious moment I’ve had lately was stealing cups out of a supply closet at school, scoff if you will. But think about it, all of the most powerful revolutions are started by the teens. Egypt’s recent revolt was started by the April 6 Youth Movement. American teens fanned the flame of revolution in colonial society. Joan of the Arc led the French army to many victories in the Hundred Years War. This obviously begs the question: why teenagers? It’s the potent combination of being old enough to think we know everything and young enough to still believe that we can still change the world. We haven’t yet been squashed by the cynicism of the world. The worst experiences of some teen’s lives are a whitehead on picture day or detention on Saturday morning. For the most part, we haven’t experienced the full brutality that life can throw at us. We also know everything. We know that our teachers don’t know what they’re doing and that our parents know even less than they do. We know how to drive. We know what it’s like to carry responsibilities, and the freedom that they give us. We become independent during our adolescence. We determine who exactly we are, what we stand for, and where we’re going. The perfect mix of a generation of bold, dauntless teens with injustice means revolt.
So I say embrace your rebellious side, cling to your confidence, and spread some salicylic acid on your blackheads because these are years that we will never get back! As teens, we have much more influence and power then we realize (or maybe we do, since we do know everything). We are audacious. We are rash. We are teenagers, hear us roar.
1 Timothy 4:12 “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”
