I’m just barely a Gen-Xer. Born in 1977, I was only beginning my age three study of the world when the year marker of 1980 came and went, and Generation Y began to make their appearance. But I’m a rather good fit…if I believe everything on this subject that the psychologists, marketing guru’s, and historians wish me to. Funny how the occupancy we were intended to fill before the foundations of the world, not only influences our physical and mental development, but also our spiritual life.

Hard working Baby Boomer parents reached out to pass the baton for respected family businesses, prosperous establishments, and deep-rooted churches, all built with the sweat of their brow, to their Gen X children…and watched in dismay at the dis-interested way these offspring responded. My generation never saw our grandparents, as young fathers and mothers, fighting poverty in the Great Depression or fear in the World Wars. We didn’t know that our parents worked so hard to build and overcome these odds. We didn’t understand why they were seemingly emotionally absent or too busy. In one article I read, the “Lonely Generation” or the “Latch-Key Generation” was given to the era I grew up in… young people struggling to find their place in the adult world, less interested in family money and religious heritage…and more hungry for authentic relationship. This desire not only went horizontal…it also went vertical.

I’ve been blessed with rich friendship of many ages and generations. However, as I am in particular observation of my own life and all that is working in it and all that is not…I’ve began to notice something in it and in my fellow thirty-something friends.

High on horizontal relationship, many of my generation have large families…and high on The Vertical Relationship many are also shouldering ministries of all kinds. Generation X was not interested in the quiet religiosity of the generations before them. We wanted to talk about the Christian Life instead of the stock market or the weather. We wanted it real, meaty, current, applicable, able to cut through the airy mystery of the answers so often given to us by preceding generations. Many of us jumped full throttle into whatever outreach opportunity came down the pike, eager to be Jesus to everybody and in all things. We kept on even after our marriages began to bear the precious fruit of children. The verse we so often repeat to give weight to all this over commitment is “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Christian radio and Christian publishing are beginning to fill up with Gen X speakers and authors with emotional messages of some way they changed their corner of their community, country, nation, or world…through authentic relationship with first Jesus, then people. And they are. There is the a Global Parent mindset that encourages the stay-at-home mom to think beyond her four walls to the additional opportunities to minister. This is good. There is a call to abandon consumerism, vain traditions, and exclusive, narrow world-views that limit a great and powerful God. This is right.

Could it be, though, in our abundance of fervor, zeal, testimonies, opportunities, and resources that we have lost the Abundant Life? The symbolism of this generation becomes startling gruesome when , figuratively speaking, a big red “X” can be seen stamped over my life or upon yet another weary face of one of my peers…burned out, spread too thin, stoop-shouldered, guilt-ridden, and over-committed.

When our hyper-spirituality and drive trespasses the God-ordained boundaries of our life and steals the energy He wishes us to be using in the specific concerns of our circumstances …we cannot do all things through Christ who strengthens me for we are not in His will. He will not empower us to jeopardize the primary ministry He gave us. That would not be in His character to do so.

If I am married, my first ministry opportunity is my spouse. There ought, in ideal circumstances, to always be energy first for our beloved… for that is what builds the “us” and “we” and “ours” in Him, and a three fold cord is not easily broken.* The next outreach to receive concentration is the young children God has placed in my home. For if I set their needs aside for some effort a bit more easier, rewarding, gratifying, or appealing…they themselves may become the ones that need ministering to… both now and in the future. The emotional/ physical/spiritual well-being of both parent and child, the dynamics of their personalities, and the outside circumstances they are working under varies so widely from home to home that one could never set a standard on “how much time” the ministry of children ought to consume. If a person is married with children in the home, it would behoove all other ministries to take its place in line behind these God-ordained sanctions. How might God use the time and energy remaining then is quite up to Him, and even if it seems little or weak to us…it can be made perfect and far-reaching in His strength when we offer it to Him.

I am Gen-Xer. I just wanted the real Jesus. I just wanted His peace in this stormy life. I wanted to be a part of His restoration to a broken world. I wanted real faith that would move mountains of evil and impossibility. But I have buckled under the pressure of ideas, purposes, enthusiasms, convictions, and passions that were not meant to be mine. I’ve tried to be an advocate and give time and energy for causes the Lord has asked nothing of me but to pray for. I have let my family suffer my fatigue and impatience and anger because of some great destiny I was pursuing. Yet, the Father has been merciful and is letting me learn, sometimes the hard way, what is the best way.

And so I sift and pray. Sometimes daily. What to pick up and what to lay down? For I know that when the Lord created the earth He gave the seas its boundaries and when He knit me in the womb, He gave me limitations. Anything is possible to she that believes…if her heavenly Father has believed it for her, first. And always, I’m asking to be where He is, and where He is…is here, in this moment. This moment might be filled with adversity or prosperity. It may bring me plenty or hunger, abundance or need. It may bring me low or cause me to abound. I can do (and face) all these things through Christ who strengthens me. Everywhere and in all things, I am learning this secret of contentment. *

That is the scripture in its true context. For once, I am overjoyed at being corrected. I don’t have to do ALL things? Ah, no…just face with contentment the life of moments He has chosen for me, and that is it’s own journey..one that I’m still on…and a blog post for another day.

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*Ecc. 4:12

*Phil. 4:13