We Will Not Be Elephants

So recently, as part of my school work, I've been reading The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. The book is written as a series of letters from a demon in Hell mentoring to a demon on Earth who is working to tempt a young man. Today, I came across the following passage.

"Prosperity knits a man to the World. He feels that he is "finding his place in it," while really it is finding its place in him. His increasing reputation, his widening circle of acquaintances, his sense of importance, the growing pressure of absorbing and agreeable work, build up in him a sense of really being at home on Earth, which is just what we want. You will notice that the young are generally less unwilling to die than the middle-aged and the old.

The truth is that the Enemy, having oddly destined these mere animals to life in His own eternal world, has guarded them pretty effectively from the danger of feeling at home anywhere else. That is why we must often wish long life to our patients; seventy years is not a day too much for the difficult task of unraveling their souls from Heaven and building up a firm attachment to the Earth. While they are young we find them always shooting off at a tangent. Even if we contrive to keep them ignorant of explicit religion, the incalculable winds of fantasy and music and poetry- the mere face of a girl, the song of a bird, or the sight of a horizon- are always blowing our whole structure away. They will not apply themselves steadily to worldly advancement, prudent connections, and the policy of safety first. So inveterate is their appetite for Heaven, that our best method, at this stage, of attaching them to Earth is to make them believe that Earth can be turned into Heaven at some future date by politics or eugenics or "science" or psychology or what not." - pp.101-102 

C.S. Lewis is one of my favorite writers for a reason, guys. I mean, typically you wouldn't look in a book about demons for a message about the importance of Christian youth. Youth today are capable of so much more than we're told. In a more recent book, Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris, one of the chapters is labeled, "The Myth of Adolescence". Young people don't realize that the infamous "teenager" doesn't exist. The term itself has been around for less than seventy years. We're put into this category that's completely made up, and then expected to act "our age". The Harris twins liken it to how elephants are trained. Let's call this elephant Kenny. When Kenny is little, a spike is driven into the ground and his back leg is tied to it. He will pull and struggle, but he's just not yet strong enough to get away. So eventually he gives up. But don't forget, Kenny is an elephant. He gets bigger and stronger and could rip that stake out of the ground like it's a twig. However, he's been taught he can't get away, so he doesn't try, and he's forever stuck on in a little circular area because in his mind, that twig and rope is a chain and an anchor (Which, on second thought, he could probably move as well). On page 28 the book says,

"Could it be that we and most young people we know are like that elephant-strong,smart,holding incredible potential,but held back by nothing more than a piece of twine? Left almost powerless by a lie?"

Don't you see how accurate this is? Going back to the Screwtape Letters, we are in a perfect place to do amazing things. God has instilled this restlessness, this seeking, in us. One look at Instagram and you'll see how enamored we are with "the sight of a horizon". We long for beauty, for a place we feel like we fit. Those of us who know Christ know that we'll never feel at home here, because we don't belong here. John 17 says we are "not of the world".

The problem is that even if we are Christians, so often we try to make this world feel like home. We get so obsessed with what we can see, that we tend to forget that this is only temporary. More importantly, we forget that once this world is gone and we are home, many of our friends won't be with us. We should be so in love with Jesus and have such a strong longing for our true home that everyone around us can see it written on our faces, in our words, and in our lives. We have hope! We have a home! We are loved by our Creator and made in His image!

Why would we keep this to ourselves?