Tuesday, June 23

Today’s Readings: Psalm 69:1-15; 1 Samuel 17:12-30; John 19:25-34; 2 Corinthians 11:1-6; Psalm 31

When I was young, I was frustrated by the way many adults treated the youth in the groups to which I belonged. It always seemed like the adults in the groups wanted youth around so that they could point to them and say, “Hey, look! Isn’t our group wonderful because it has cross-generational appeal?!” But when it came time to factoring the youth into the group’s decision-making process, the adults would completely overlook the youth – justifying their exclusion by saying, “The youth don’t have enough life experience to grasp the complexity of the issues involved.” I found that duplicity totally offensive when I was younger. In fact, I still do. While youth may lack a little life-experience, many of them make up for it with wisdom well beyond their years. I was reminded of my frustration with prevailing attitudes about youth when I read today’s passage from 1 Samuel 17:12-30. In that passage, we are told the adult Israelites were facing a problem too big for them – literally! They were facing the giant Goliath. And because the problem was too big for the adults to solve, they assumed a young person like David certainly couldn’t be of any help. Thankfully, David didn’t buy into their limited thinking. David allowed himself to think outside the box, and consequently set into motion a chain of events that would eventually saved those narrow-minded adults. The story of David and Goliath reminds me that many of us have a group that we tend to overlook or marginalize. For some, that group might be the youth. For others, it might be those with mental health issues. For still others it could be individuals who belong to a different political party. No matter what your particular bias, the issue remains the same: it’s wrong to overlook the sacred worth of someone just because we think that he/she doesn’t fit our preconceived ideas of what a contributing member of the community might look like. Today, spend some time thinking about which group you tend to marginalize. Follow that time up by centering yourself in God so that you might begin to see that group with new eyes: God’s. Til next time…