Sunday Thoughts has returned. My views on my Christianity and how I see it through reading the Bible and not listening to the dividing of interpretations.

Today let’s talk about how young people can be examples to us old folks, well maybe older folks.

There are so many problems in the world today that I don’t even bother speaking about them here any longer. They exists. We know they exists. I won’t give those movements, or murders for celebrity sake any further exposure by putting their names in my writing. That’s partly why some do what they do, they know they will go out in a blaze of glory and be on the news for several hours–at least–and then mumbled out for a few days following.

Instead of glorifying them, unexpectedly so, by naming them, people of all ages should help others not go that route.

How?

There is really only one way to do that and that is by being an example.

No matter your age, you are an example ALREADY. You may be an example for good or for bad. I don’t want to hear arguments that there is no such thing as something being good or bad and that it is simply something based on ones personal views. I am certain many people reading this could  come up with examples of what is bad. I don’t want to think about the examples that come to my mind. So let’s move on to being more productive.

I periodically am in touch with former students and some say how much they look up to me and appreciate me. The funny thing about that is I’m envious of them and what they have going on in their lives. Great college experiences are being entered into. Futures are waiting to be discovered and shaped. And I don’t shy away from expressing that to them, that appreciation of them.

^“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.”-1 Timothy 4:12

Here you see there is no age to being an example. We can learn from the young as much as the old. My son, who has learned from me a great deal of his, will say or do something and I learn from him. The young see things in a way that is less colored by years of experience and wounds.

Those wounds are caution signs for us, but they can also be false signs in some cases. There are exceptions to every situation–every rule. We can’t spend our lives living in fear of the exceptions and miss out on the exceptionals.

I’m not saying we should ignore our past experience in favor of youthful belief, but I am saying we can capture that belief in moving forward with caution instead of either not moving at all or moving backwards.

How does this all make to improve the world?

We continue to be open to the world, to communication, to experiences, to views. We refuse to let a bad experience dictate how we view similar situations. Yes, I mean we don’t allow past moments to let us not like people of a certain color–as one example. Think about it. If we did that we wouldn’t like any skin color at all.

And there we are. The problem. We really don’t trust very many people to the extent we need to. We don’t trust situations. Jadedism is one of the worst isms out there. We just don’t believe the good because we only witness the good being debunked in the news. The true good is rarely if ever reported with as much gusto and zeal as the bad.

Young people will listen to young people and follow young people a lot more freely than us old folk. Even us old folk that try to be a good example. Us old folk can be examples too, and perhaps help with the old folk problems as well as the young folk problems by not giving fuel to problems. We fuel things, as well as young people fueling things, more than we all realize. Young and old working together will make it work.

Much Respect-Much Love