We just concluded a two-week series in church about the next generation. And, in a number of services we heard young people take the pulpit and preach to the congregation. A question reverberated in my mind and in my heart days after the preaching. Is your life the summit or is it the seed?

I have always heard it said and preached, we believe in the next generation. More so, I’ve said it myself a million times. The future is bright. You reach a student, you reach a family, and eventually you transform a nation. All that was a confession of faith. Yet today, we see the fruition of every faith declaration we uttered many years ago.

Elle Cabiling asked that question when she preached at our service last week. She is a full-time campus missionary and she helps students find their purpose in God. She is now Elle, but I still fondly think of her as Elizabeth. Why? Because I knew her as the toddler who was regularly brought by her parents to our youth services. Her parents, Ferdie and Judy, believed it and lived our faith declaration many years ago. They passed it on to many students and student leaders, and ultimately to their own daughter.

Is our life a summit or a seed? Is our own success the epitome of what our life goal has become? Or, do we envision planting seeds of faith and hope in the generations coming after us? Do we speak words that bring hope and life to the realities that they face? Do we believe in them despite the challenges that we see? Are we conduits of God’s grace and acceptance to them? Do we help them see that they could be so much more than their circumstances seem to dictate? Or, are we just living for our own dreams and ambitions? Have we stopped believing? Have we forgotten the next generation?

We all have a next generation in our lives. Some may be related by blood, others not. Just the same, we have a mandate, to make our life count for the future generations.

Some may have forgotten the passion we had as students when we truly believed we could change the world. Hopefully, you rediscover that same zeal and passion and faith in believing and fighting for the next generation. Because, the future is theirs.