THE ISSUE
People say the years between 12 and 20 are the best years of your life. If this is true, then life is a cruel joke. Even though I’m a Christian, I find the teen years to be hard. To be honest, I often feel pretty miserable. How can I change? How can I spark the joy that’s supposed to be in a believer’s life?
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:28-31).
WHY YOU’RE UNHAPPY
Some people call it self-esteem. Others say self-worth. Whatever it is — it is the feeling of significance deep inside us that is crucial to our emotional, spiritual and social stability. Everyone wants to be happy and successful and to regard himself as a worthwhile human being. What’s so bad about that?
The problem is that more and more teenagers are asking, “Is this all there is to life?” They are not happy about being young and living in this world. They don’t like being who they are. Happy. Successful. Believe in yourself. It’s just hype for a lot of youth today.
Let’s ask some serious questions: Could it be that what we have been told about fulfillment is a lie? That chasing after personal success, status, beauty, wealth and the approval of others is a dead-end street? Is it possible that we have been told the biggest, boldest lies about what is most important in life?
THE SOURCE OF SIGNIFICANCE
The Bible tells us that God created us each individually, and He constantly keeps His eye on us. Do we know we are significant and valuable to God? Jesus said that God knows details like the number of hairs on our head, sees everything we do and loves us personally and unconditionally. Jesus said that God is not some distant, uninvolved deity but, in fact, wants to know us authentically and have a moment-by-moment relationship with us. Even more remarkable to our modern minds is the fact that this personal God loves us and wants to know when we are mad at Him, messed up by the mistakes of life or even when we simply don’t care anymore. God offers unconditional love and acceptance as the basis for a strong sense of self-worth. Can you believe that?
Consider this: Through Jesus Christ we experience the security and significance for which we were created — not just in eternity beyond the death of our human bodies, but here on earth as well. Through God’s plan of redemption we can be brought back and start our relationship with God all over again.
TIME TO GET RECONNECTED
You’d think that everyone hearing the good news would run to God and trust in what Jesus has done for him. Sadly, that is not so. We are extremely stubborn and full of pride. Rather than receive God’s unconditional love, we create false gods in our own image when we should be humbling ourselves before the real, living God.
This is how Paul describes it: “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles” (Romans 1:21-23).
God has given us plenty of physical and spiritual evidence to know that He is real. (Check out Romans 1:20.) Yet we ignore the evidence and only believe what we can understand with our human minds. We make substitute gods to worship and look to them for comfort rather than the real God. (See Romans 1:24-25.)
Our Creator lets us follow the temporary pleasures (money, sex and power) in our search for who we are. But understand this: All our human answers disappoint us because we exchange the truth for a lie and reduce God to something that we try to explain humanly.
IT’S YOUR CHOICE
You can either go to God to find out the truth about who you are and what the purpose of your life is — or you can let other people make the rules about what success is and who is valuable.
Even those of us who have put our trust in Christ often find ourselves believing Satan’s deceptions. You can learn to counter those lies with God’s plan to bring us back to the destiny for which He originally created us — to become like Jesus Christ.
Satan, of course, is absolutely opposed to our becoming like Christ. He has convinced most of the world that this equation of life is true:
Self-Worth = Performance + Others’ Opinions.
If we base our worth on our ability to perform or on the ever-changing approval of others, we should not be surprised when we are tormented by thoughts of insecurity, fear and anger. The real choice is whether our true value is based on our behavior and the approval of others or on what God says is true about us.
Our choice is important because our behavior is often a reflection of our beliefs about who we are — consistent with what we think to be true about ourselves. We have compelling, God-given needs for love, acceptance and purpose. Most of us will go to virtually any length to meet those needs. The power of Satan’s lie is strong when we are feeling weak. The challenge and the choice remain: Can you trust God’s complete acceptance of you as His son and allow Him to free you from your dependence on success and the approval of others?
PRAY IT OUT:
“Lord Jesus, I need You. I want You to be my Savior and the Lord of my life. I accept Your death on the Cross as the complete payment for my sins. Thank You for forgiving me and for giving me new life. Help me understand Your love and power, so that my life will bring honor to You. Amen.” 
