So, Who Can I Trust? Oh, Yeah.

Psalm 146
(I'm trying something new, click on the passage to actually read it. Let me know if it works.)

Even though it was written a very long time ago (At least 2000 years), it seems as though today's Psalm was written last week.

For the past 2 weeks I've been attending graduations for a few of the youth I know from the school I work at or from the church I attend. I've also attended graduations for others I just know and with whom I want to be a part of that special moment with. It's always exciting to me to watch our youth as friends greet them with a shriek and tight hugs. I mostly enjoy watching them stand with their family, posing for pictures with parents, grandparents, uncles and aunties, and cousins - all of who only want to share in this special moment with the person they love.

On occasion I actually get to sit in and watch a ceremony. In Hawaii, graduations are very popular and so being able to actually sit in a ceremony, versus waiting outside for a couple hours to see the graduate, is a rare and special occurrence if you're not a part of the immediate family. Yesterday was one of those special occasions.

As I sat there with my wife and another family from church, I listened to the words of the keynote speaker. He talked about what college (yes, it was a college graduation) brings to us besides higher education. Leadership and courage were just two examples of what he highlighted. It was when he mentioned that college allows for a community of free-thinkers to gather and share in their thoughts that I stopped listening and began realizing. I realized that that's exactly what our generation has been trying to accomplish; free thinkers.

My thoughts then went to why mainline churches are losing touch with young people (according to surveys, anyway). I then thought maybe, just maybe, we now have a generation of people who are encouraged to be free-thinkers, and our churches haven't yet found the place where we allow for free-thinking.

The Psalmist says not to put our trust in princes or mortals and gives as the reason because when those people no longer have power, neither do the rules they made for us. Instead, the Psalmist says, we should put our trust in God because God is the one from whom all things which sustain us come. In my opinion this kind of trust can only come from building a relationship with God that is personal and individual; a relationship based in sharing one's free-thoughts to explore all options in making a relationship based in trust work.

If our generation has worked so hard in developing a generation of free-thinkers, we need to allow them to think freely. Maybe it's time we begin to listen to what the new generation of free-thinking Christians want to say.