Craig T. Owens

As this week marks the beginning of a “new year,” (as students are heading back to school and we’re all settling in to our fall routines), we are taking time to focus our prayers.

Today’s pray focus is on our youth.

Our future is not “somewhere around the corner”; it’s now! Our future is in the lives of the children in our homes and schools at this very moment. Because the enemy knows how important our kids are, satan is doing all he can to try to thwart their plans, discourage them about their prospects, and get them thinking that their lives are not very valuable.

An American College Health Association survey found:

• 94% of students feel overwhelmed by their lifestyles.
• 44% feel so depressed it was almost difficult to function.
• 10% considered suicide in the past year.

As a result, many of our youth have begun to “check out” of life. This can be deadly for our future. Noted author and researcher Dr. Tim Elmore said of this generation, “In cultures where males stop setting a healthy example, there is trouble. Crime rates rise, the percentage of teen pregnancies and unwed mothers go up, the number of gangs increase, unemployment swells, and depression and delinquency rise.”

Yet Jesus made it clear that the way children received the Kingdom of God in faith is to be the pacesetting example for all of us (see Mark 10:15-16). With this in mind, the Apostle Paul challenged his young protege Timothy to be the example for all others to follow. His charge to Timothy is a part of our prayer focus today:

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. …Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. (1 Timothy 4:12, 15)

Please pray with us throughout the day for our youth. And if you can join us tonight, the church will be open for prayer from 5:30-6:30pm.

UPDATE: You can download the PowerPoint of our prayer points for today by clicking here → Week of prayer – students.