Our Youth

“Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” 1 Timothy 4:12

Don’t despise the youth. Do you know that Josiah was seven years old when he became King of Israel? That is right, and he restored the House of the Lord to its original condition because it was in a mess. In fact, he reinforced it.

I know of situations where a father will not trust his child to take over the business. One man, and this is not a joke, was no less than 60 years old, before his father who was nearly 90 years old, finally gave him authority to take over the business. What was the result? Well, by that time the son had totally lost vision for the business... No new ideas, no self-confidence in himself, no hope for expansion and of course, the business just fell apart.

In some extreme cases the young man leaves the business. He immigrates to another country and his old dad, losing strength, sees everything that he built up over a lifetime start to crumble in front of his very eyes. Whose fault is that? It is not the young man's. We need to give the young people an opportunity to show us what they can do. What is the worst thing that can happen? Well, maybe lose a business but gain a son. By the way, if he knows the Lord Jesus Christ, he won’t lose you anything.

I remember a lovely story of a family, right down in the Southern part of South Africa - The young boys came back from agricultural college and they told their dad they wanted to change the whole system of the farm. The dad, who was an industrialist himself, with limited experience in agriculture said, “No boys, we have to plough and plant wheat, we have to milk cows, we have to shear the sheep.” They said, “No dad, we are not doing any of that.” And they basically said, “If you don’t give us an opportunity we are going to leave.”

But he was a wise man and he said, “Okay boys, go for it.” And these sons, there were three or four of them, they sold all the cattle, they sold all the tractors, all the dairy cows and they went and they started to farm with fynbos, which are wild flowers. They picked the wild flowers, they built a warehouse on the farm and they sent these wild flowers all over the world. The last I heard, I think they had the biggest business in town.

Don’t restrict your child, give him a chance. They will not disappoint you.
God bless you and have a lovely day!