2 Chronicles 34:3 In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David. In his twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, Asherah poles, carved idols and cast images.

We really have very little emotional grasp of what life was like back then. Current life expectancy in developed countries would have been unimaginable to them, because there were so many ways to die. Josiah himself died in battle at 39. That was all the more reason to get an early start on life! Since they made him king when he was 8, after his father was assassinated, the 8th year of his reign was when he was 16, which the writer acknowledges was still young. When we think about the activities of 16-year-olds today, this is all the more impressive! With considerable wisdom he waited four more years before making his move to rid Judah of idolatry, but the course was set at 16. There are many impressive young people today, but in general we expect too little of them, especially in matters of faith, and so fail to challenge them to be and do all that they can be for God. Teenagers have impacted the world in various ways down through the centuries. In a negative way, many of the members of the notorious MS13 gang are even in their early teens. For the most part they were sucked in by their need to belong, to be accepted as part of something, which is often acute at that age. Those caught in that net have not been given the acceptance and sense of purpose they needed by adults with a firm grasp of morality, and the results are tragic. We need to accept and value young people as they are right now, challenging them to be all they can be. We never know when we will encounter another Josiah!

Thinking back, I was still 16 when I started college, and I made a lot of decisions around then that have impacted my life ever since. Some of those decisions were good and some not, but most of the adults around me weren’t really aware of the decisions at the time I made them. Even so, I had a far more supportive environment than most young people, I think. Right now I have very little interaction with anyone under 18, but a man in this church is wanting to get a ministry to teenagers going, and I need to be fully supportive of that. I need to help people “remember their Creator in the days of their youth,” (Ecclesiastes 12:1) so that they may make the best use of their lives, however long they might be.

Father, when we are so involved in planning for an elder-care facility, this isn’t something that’s been very big on my radar. Thank You for bringing it to my attention. I pray that the middle school/high school ministry would indeed catch fire and many young people be born again, to live their whole lives – and throughout eternity – as Your children, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!