DEAR CHRISTINE: Our youth really need prayers

Dear Christine,
I am a female in my late 20’s, and I am very concerned about the rising number of young people who seemingly do not have any ambition or goals.
I am seeing young males and females all around me who go to school, hardly get a good education, and before you know the females are pregnant – not once or twice, but three and four times.
They are often left to raise these children on their own, or depend on the children’s fathers to help them make it from day to day.
They are also more concerned about having a BlackBerry and brand named clothes, than looking to make something out of life for themselves.
Christine, I am concerned. Something is not right! Adults seem not to be playing their part in ensuring that we raise responsible young people.
I am not saying that all of them have no ambition, but the high number of them who do not have any ambition is worrying me.
It is a matter which needs to be looked into. I believe that through the years respective governments have created various educational and other programmes to help, but they have not been as successful as we would like.
I am thinking that as a nation we need to return to God; then and only then would we see change and healing among our young people and the country as a whole.
I am appealing to those who are as concerned as I am, to start praying earnestly for our young people.
Too many are lost to crime and are seeking to find fulfilment through sex and the entertainment industry.
Barbadians, I urge you to take time to pray for our young men and women.
 – CONCERNED
Dear Concerned,
I appreciate your letter and the concern you obviously have for the young people in our society.
I also agree that we should continue to keep them in our prayers.
However, I believe that we cannot wait until they become young men and women to do so. We need to pray for our children – even the unborn – on a daily basis.
We also need to expose them to the Word of God, and see to it that they go to Sunday School.
We, as adults, still need to train up a child in the way that he should go; and when he is old he shall not depart from it.
Many of the problems we face in our society are of a spiritual nature, and unless we truly return to God, things will hardly get any better.  
Let’s keep praying. Prayer changes things.
– CHRISTINE