You wouldn’t be the first to complain about how young people today are missing the mark. The temptation to complain about youth is as old as the dinosaur. You may have seen the following quote online. It is often attributed to Peter the Hermit from a sermon he preached in 1274 A.D.
The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress.
There is a lot of misinformation floating around on the internet. This particular quote presents a bit of a problem as Peter the Hermit died in the year 1115 A.D. – more than 150 years before he supposedly said it. Oops!
Hesiod, Socrates, and Plato each get credited with very similar quotes, but my favorite is this fabricated quote from “a six-thousand-year-old Egyptian tomb.”
We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self-control.
However, if this six-thousand-year-old quote actually existed, it would be the oldest known instance of writing, appearing a thousand years before any previously discovered instances! Whoever made up that quote certainly wasn’t an archeologist.
The Psalmist provides very simple, yet wise, counsel for us in Psalm 37:
“Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.”
Psalm 37:8
If we brood about youth today, especially about things we cannot change, the results are self-defeating. We end up wasting our time and becoming angry, depressed, and frustrated.
The same Psalm offers a different choice: “Trust in the Lord and do good.” Grandparents who spend their time thinking about the good they can do for their grandchildren are much more effective than those who are caught up in being critical about the state of the world today.
Yes, we live in “troublous” times, but we need to expel the troublous thoughts from our minds, trust in the Lord, and push forward. For our good and the good of our grandchildren.
This article by Pili Abouchaar is excerpted from Grandly, copyright © 2024 by Grandly Missions, Inc.
Top image credit: photo of teen boys with skateboard on playground, from Bigstock.com, © by michaeljung, stock photo ID: 14761604. Used with permission.
Pili Abouchaar is the director of Grandly. At the age of twenty-four, she moved to the United States in response to the Lord’s call and joined Mike Shaughnessy in making Grandly a reality. She lives with her husband, Gus, and have two beautiful children in Lansing, Michigan.