I think my neighbor got a little freaked out last July when he saw me reading Helter Skelter as part of a project to revisit some of the events of the turbulent 1960s. Apparently, my decision to read about Charles Manson’s gruesome 1969 murders raised a question in his mind. Everybody talks about the cultural changes the ‘60s ushered in, but my project showed me not much has changed during the last 40 years. Sure, things may look or sound different. But everything “new” is at its root a manifestation of something that’s been gnawing away at us from deep down for a long, long time.

We’re Still Lost and Yearning

Manson’s murdering disciples looked to him as a “messiah.” But the things that drove them are really no different than what’s driving kids today: a yearning for significance, purpose in life and that evasive “something more.” Why are kids so gullible? First, as with every person and thing in our post-Genesis 3:6 world, they were lost and broken. Second, they each felt horribly alone. Chap Clark, in his book Hurt (Baker, 2004), described the debilitating thread of “systemic abandonment” that runs through today’s youth culture. We’ve all seen what happens to kids when they’re abandoned, forgotten and left alone with their aching spiritual hunger and thirst. They’ll grab onto anything that promises (albeit falsely) to fill their hunger, quench their thirst and ultimately redeem.

God-Shaped Vacuum

While it’s important for us to keep up with rapidly changing trends that influence our students, it’s even more foundational and necessary for those of us who minister to kids to know that spiritual yearning is a cultural constant that touches every life across all times and places. Biblical history, world history and our own personal histories all offer irrefutable proof. David spoke of his soul panting and thirsting for God (Psalms 42). A rich, young ruler who seemed to have it all came to Jesus in search of something he knew was missing (Matthew 19). The yearning of the people Paul encountered in Athens led them to erect an altar “to an unknown God” (Acts 17).

Augustine wrote in his Confessions: I carried about me a cut and bleeding soul, that could not bear to be carried by me, and where I could put it, I could not discover. Not in pleasant groves, not in games and singing, nor in the fragrant corners of a garden. Not in the company of a dinner table, not in the delights of the bed, not even in my books and poetry. It floundered in a void and fell back on me. I remained a haunted spot, which gave me not rest, from which I could not escape. For where could my heart flee from my own heart?

Blaise Pascal spoke of a “god-shaped vacuum” which longs to be filled. C.S. Lewis said that we all experience “a longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off.” G.K. Chesterton wrote, “We all feel the riddle of the earth without anyone to point it out. The mystery of life is the plainest part of it.”

Or as my 16-year-old friend Sarah put it, “I have everything but have nothing. I want something, but I’m not sure what it is.” You and I know what Sarah and her yearning peers want. And so we pray for them and do youth ministry, hoping that the rest and redemption that can only be experienced by entering into God’s story will someday grip them with that divine grip that never lets up.

In today’s youth culture, you don’t need to look very far or hard to see and hear these universal echoes of yearning written, spoken, sung and portrayed in music, television, books and film. The fact that the emptiness can never be filled by the false idols of fame, fortune, sex, power and influence has been evident in recent news of girls named Paris, Britney and Lindsay.  Their high-profile, train-wreck stories are proof of the yearning that runs so deep and wide that the cries can be heard everywhere in popular culture.

To the Unknown God

What significance does this cultural reality have for us as we minister to students? Here are some simple suggestions to consider as you ponder how the reality of spiritual yearning should shape your ministry:

First, always keep this fact in the forefront  of your mind: Behind every set of eyes we meet is a heart that has eternity etched into its very being.

No student we meet is alone in being alone. And that reality, above all others, is what is driving how they spend their time and money in the quest to have the God-shaped hole in the soul satisfied. Don’t ever fall into the trap of believing that just because the hunger might be hidden on the outside, it doesn’t exist on the inside. John Stott reminds us, in The Contemporary Christian (IVP, 1995), that even when they’re running away from God, they know they “have no other resting place, no other home.” They all long for and need God.

Second, no kid is unredeemable.

Over the years, I’ve watched many youth workers (including myself) fall into the trap of believing that Jesus isn’t for that kid. He’s too far gone. My heart recently broke while having a conversation with a Christian friend. As we were standing and talking, a skinny kid with black clothes, long jet-black-dyed hair and a pale complexion walked past us. My Christian friend proudly told me how he had convinced his son to avoid talking to or spending time with the kid.

My friend didn’t know the boy’s name or his story. All he “knew,” based on what the kid looked like, was that he was too far gone.

How sad. The spiritual bigotry and “God-in-my-image” theology of the prophet Jonah lives on in us all in some way, shape or form. I will never forget the challenging words of an edgy-looking teenage girl who had told me her sad story.

“You talk to adults in the church all the time, don’t you?” she asked. “Well, every time you speak to a group of adults, would you do me a favor? Tell them, please, that the people who look the hardest on the outside—like me—are the people who are the softest and neediest on the inside.”

Third, assume a posture of looking and listening, then addressing.

When the apostle Paul went into the pagan city of Athens, he took the time to open his ears and eyes before opening his mouth. Paul knew the unredeemed long to fill the God-shaped hole in their souls. During his walk among the Athenians, he went to great lengths to look for evidence of their desire to know the one true God.

We must do the same. Popular culture is filled with examples that overtly address the emerging generation’s spiritual hunger. If you read what they read (their books and magazines), watch what they watch (their movies, television, Web sites) and listen to what they listen to (their music), you will see and hear their yearning for restored fellowship with the Creator.

Then, take the time to talk with them about these signs of the universal human hunger for transcendence. Talking with kids about the “god-shaped vacuum” all of us try to fill in with false gods will help them experience the restoration of who they really are. ____________________________________
Walt Mueller is the founder and president of the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (cpyu.org). He is the author of several books, including Youth Culture 101.