Oppression Of Honesty In Today's Society

In today’s society, people have a habit of being perpetually busy. They are involved with anything and everything they can and are constantly on the move. This is true of the adult community yet seems to be even more true of adolescents. For them, busyness has become glorified and, in a sense, worshipped. But as future youth ministers who seek to help adolescents, we must ask, why? It seems to stand that busyness has become glorified to adolescents due to the immense pressure that has been placed on them to succeed which causes unwarranted stress that can diminish their spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional health.
In today’s world, ‘busy’ seems to be more than merely an adjective to describe one’s schedule; it is a way of life. I would

The answer seems to be that teens feel the pressure to succeed. In Clark’s book, a student comments, saying, “We feel an incredible pressure to succeed in every area, or it will all fall apart.” (Clark 136) Clark continued to question them by asking them to identify what ‘it’ specifically was. To this, the student had no answer. Still, this pressure remains a reality in an adolescent’s life. Pressure can be defined as demands for success and achievement placed upon a person by others. These can be pressures such as getting a good grade, landing the lead role in the school musical, or winning an athletic championship. This is where we must stop and ask, who are the people that adolescents define as successful? Today, most of society would claim that those who are successful are people with great amounts of wealth or recognition. Sadly, several Christians have also adopted this mindset today, but this is not a biblical definition and certainly not what God calls us to strive for on this earth. Rather, I believe that success of a Christian is measured by how we honor God. This can be seen throughout the life and ministry of Paul. Specifically, we turn to passages such as Philippians 1:20 where Paul says that above all he desires for God to be honored in his body whether by life or by death. Still, Christians today wrestle with this idea of full-surrender to God. They believe that the power is in

By my own definition, stress is when someone is put through a challenging or difficult circumstance that causes disruptions to a person’s mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health. Clark tells us that a “major aspect of [adolescent’s] developmental responsibility is to learn how to cope with stress and manage their emotions.” (Clark 138) But this has been made a challenge for adolescents today since “adults have continued to pile increased burdens and complex demands on them.” (Clark 138) These extra pressures that adolescents have been taking on are directly affecting their spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional health and often come from adults such as their parents. Clark tells us that while there are everyday signs of stress “such as recurring headaches, insomnia, or lack of ability to concentrate” (Clark 139), there are other “more serious problems…” that teens are turning to “…such as eating disorders, substance abuse, self-injury, and suicide.” (Clark 139) Everywhere we turn, we see adolescents dealing with issues like these and quite often it is due to excessive amounts of stress. Stress is taking a toll on the lives of our present-day adolescent generation around the world and as people who seek to minister to this generation, we must look to Scripture to see what God says on this topic. Though stress is never directly addressed in