Saying No to Numbness

One thing that I have appreciated being in Kansas City and hanging around IHOP is the conviction of reality that people here press in for. In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings and other troubling recent events, there has been a lot of fervent intercession for this dying generation. In a culture that bombards us with anesthesia and makes us numb to the tragedies occurring daily, I'm beginning to feel the sting again.

Things are not what they seem. Things in America are much worse than we've told ourselves, and our need is much more urgent than we know. The lost among us do not belong to a generation of "good intentioned yet sadly deceived" people. We are living among a generation that hates God, and will continue in the spirit of death until God brings His merciful re-birth. We do not simply need guidance or correction - we need transformation. We are not "a little off track" - we are steeped in depravity and are reaping the fruit.

From where I come from, this is a message that has been minimized and had its edges softened. The general feeling is that if you have a prayer life, read the Bible, and serve others, you're doing pretty well. But the message here is always a cry for more. We do not realize how serious the situation has become.

Consider the following statistics taken from the Barna Group website:

- By the time an American child is 23 years old, as was the killer in Virginia, he will have seen countless murders among the more than 30,000 acts of violence to which he is exposed through television, movies and video games.

- By the age of 23, the average American will have viewed thousands of hours of pornographic images, which diminish the dignity and value of human life.

- The average adolescent spends more than 40 hours each week digesting media, and the typical teenager in America absorbs almost 60 hours of media content each week. For better or worse, the messages received from the media represent a series of unfiltered, unchaperoned worldview lessons.

- One-third of the nation’s teenagers report having been in a physical fight at least once in the last year. Nearly one out of every five 9th through 12th grade students has carried a gun, knife or club in the past month.

- It appears that as many as one out of every five young people is or has been under the influence of mood-altering medications, some of whose long-term side effects are not fully understood by the medical community. Drugging children has become one of the ways in which we have coped with other issues.


God, have mercy and wake us up to show real love to a dying generation.