Christian faith and prayer in coaching troubled teenagers

¶ … Faith and My Work

My Christian faith will intersect with my work with troubled teenagers as I provide coaching and teaching to them. One of the ways in which I envision my faith intersecting with my work is when I encounter troubled teens who are in despair, which happens quite frequently with young persons who have lost their way or never been shown the true light. My faith is especially helpful in coaching these kids at these times because I can show them how there is a spiritual point to life and how God calls each of us to unite ourselves to him.

With teens in despair, whether they are dealing with drug/alcohol use, crime, or bad home situations, it is important to show that God still loves them, that He wants the best for them and that Christ came to be with sinners. This gives them a feeling of being wanted and of seeing that their lives have value. They can let go of their anger or their resentment once they realize that all such bitterness comes from the devil, who wants to hold them down and oppress them by it. But Christ teaches everyone to forgive and it is important to see that Christ does not want to judge us but rather that he wants us to judge ourselves and see what we can do to better ourselves and be more like Him. It is a very positive challenge that teens can react well to, especially once they begin to identify with Christ and see Him as an outsider to the world, which is often how they feel, too. Once all of this is opened up to them, it goes from being an intellectual challenge to a challenge of the will, which can be supported by prayer and sacrifice.

Thus, the second way in which I can envision my Christian faith intersecting with my job as a coach and teacher of troubled teens is in the challenging area of prayer and teaching these kids about prayer and what it means to have a prayer life. Praying can be a major challenge for people because they have never learned how to approach it. A lot of people don't know how to pray or what it means to be prayerful, but the Bible is very clear about how we should pray: we should set time apart each day to commune with God and to talk to Him. Prayer does not have to be complex or complicated. It can consist simply of thinking about Our Lord Jesus Christ, meditating on any part of his life and offering our own thoughts up to Him so that He can shape them and help guide them to where they should go. Prayer is about putting ourselves in God's hands basically and saying, "Okay, God, you are in control. I submit myself to you." This is a great way to pray and teens often are not aware of how simple it can be. It is really about trying to see the world and our neighbor in the same way that Christ sees everyone -- through eyes of love and mercy. Such a perspective is what makes the world a better place -- it gets rid of judgmental attitudes and bitter behavior. Teens can feel better about themselves as they release their pent up aggression and their cares, because now they know that even if the world rejects them, they are not rejected by God and He is greater than the world.