How to Invest

My Story

Abuse, Foster Care, Family Reunion, Drug Addiction, Teen Challenge

Life Verse

Ephesians 2:10 NASB95

10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.

Life since Teen Challenge & the creation of Adult & Teen Challenge of Northwest Ohio.

The Importance of the Previous Generation

We live in a very lost culture these days. It does not take a genius to look at our society and come to the conclusion that something is wrong. Something is very wrong.

Lately the song Baba O’Rily by The Who (1971) has been running around in my head, while I like the song, the lyrics are horrific. Here are the 2nd & 3rd stanzas:

I don't need to fight To prove I'm right I don't need to be forgiven. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Don't cry Don't raise your eye It's only teenage wasteland

In 2020 there were 45,979 deaths by suicide in our nation, including

Ages 10-14: 581

Ages 15-24: 6,062

This is a 35% increase in suicide in the last 15 years.

2021 Overdose deaths - 107,600+

2019 Overdose deaths - 70,630 (over 70% involved an opiod)

Many people had never heard of Fentanyl before 2015, now it is a common cause of death & being spoken of in congress almost on a daily basis.

There is a war going on for the minds of our society. I honestly believe that most of what we see daily on the news is a result of a war that is being abdicated on a spiritual level. Those in our society are truly deceived, because they don’t know the truth of who they are.

Deuteronomy 6:1–7 NASB95

1 “Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the Lord your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, 2 so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the Lord your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged. 3 “O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do it, that it may be well with you and that you may multiply greatly, just as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. 4 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! 5 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. 7 “You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.

The context of this command from Moses to the Israelites is when they are about to enter into the land of promise, the land of Canaan. Moses has just given them the second reading of the 10 Commandments

The heart of this is called the Schema. Dt. 6:4-5 “4 “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! 5 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

Jesus repeats this in Mt. 22:36-38 “36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 “This is the great and foremost commandment.”

This theme seems to continue throughout the Bible as seen in several examples:

Prov. 3:5-6 “5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.”

Hab. 2:4 “4 “Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith.”

Rom. 1:16-17 “16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.””

See John 15 where Jesus speaks of abiding in the vine. Paul talks of living in step with the Spirit in Rom. 8. We are to live intentional lives submitted to the Lord, in all that we do. We serve Him with our actions, our words, our goals, our emotions, with everything.

What’s more is that we are to pass this love on. As stated before, our society is being deceived on a daily basis. It is our job to pass the love of Jesus on to the next generation.

What Now?

What do we do with this? Are we convinced that God has given us a task to pass on His knowledge to the next generation? My wife & I homeschooled our 2 daughters, all the way through graduation. Well, she homeschooled, I principled, if you get my meaning. Regardless, our philosophy to parenting is that we are creating an investment into this society. We did not want to abdicate that responsibility to others that we did not know or trust. I know there are many good teachers out there, however, I don’t know all of them, and to be sure, many do not have the same values as my wife and I share. As I was told in Teen Challenge...”We believe in brainwashing.”

It is the renewing of the mind the creates results in a change of behavior. Rom. 12:2 “2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” For us the thought was that we wanted to get ahead of the game, rather than have to play catch-up.

We are in a unique time, which I believe is God Ordained. The coolest thing about our God, is that He is so strategic. He placed us within a certain time period, in a certain locality, within a certain family, where we have certain influences. How are we using these God Ordained certainties to advance the Kingdom of God? Who are we investing in to see God’s Kingdom expand?

A Catholic Commentary puts it this way: “The knowledge of the Covenant, the marvellous fact of Yahweh’s free choice of Israel, is a sacred trust that every Israelite must hand on to his sons. He must explain why this Law is the foundation and the condition of their liberty and prosperity.”

Look around yourself daily to see who God has placed in your path & love on them as God would love on them. Let me go back to my story for a moment and share a conversation that impacted my life & ultimately changed the trajectory of my life. Let me close with the story of my Great Grandpa Griffin.