Perhaps those of us who sometimes complain about “kids these days” could use a story that teaches humility and appreciation.
According to The Christian Post, thousands of young people gathered on a high school football field in Hot Springs, Arkansas, for an evening of music and testimonies of Christian faith.
“Truly, there was an unmistakable move of the Holy Spirit,” said Micah May of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. May, the director of FCA South Central Arkansas, added that “God was present and lives were changed.”
All told, May reported that more than 3,000 people, nearly all of them teenagers, attended the Oct. 11 event.
The only thing more encouraging than the astonishing attendance figure is the fact that the Hot Springs event was part of a much larger movement called “Fields of Faith,” which has made a global impact.
According to its website, Fields of Faith organizes “[events] where students challenge their peers to read the Bible and follow Jesus Christ.”
Moreover, the website listed more than 250 similar gatherings scheduled on Oct. 11 alone, including in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.
“God is on the move and we are honored to be a small part of what He is doing,” May told The Christian Post. “To God be all the glory.”
Indeed, one cannot help feeling God “on the move.” May, for instance, described “a spirit of revival stirring in our world.”
One senses that global chaos and hatred have called forth their antidotes: peace and love.
This should not surprise us. After all, the U.S. itself exists and has survived primarily for this reason.
Early 17th-century English Puritans, for instance, emigrated to North America to escape religious persecution and calamities associated with Europe’s catastrophic Thirty Years’ War.
Two centuries later, during the Civil War, Union soldiers marched to Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” They sang, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord” while fighting to liberate slaves.
Therein lies Satan’s dilemma: While sowing despair, the devil risks turning people toward God.
It has happened before in times of crisis. Thanks to some courageous teenagers, we have powerful evidence that it is happening again.
