Someone once said that youth is wasted on the young. When I was young, we youth had a lot on our minds: foreign wars that might involve us, an active round of selfindulgence,
and for some, worries about grades and the future.
Then we began to hear of a revival that was sweeping through Adventist college campuses—other colleges, not mine. It remained an abstraction till one Sabbath that I remember well to this day.
A group of the revived youth came to town that weekend and gave the Sabbath sermon at my college church. They were a little awkward and not too rehearsed. But the urgency of their experience had an almost mesmerizing effect on all of us, particularly those of a similar age. They spoke of regrets at living life for the moment, for the thrill alone, and
for themselves only. They spoke of regret at harm they had inflicted on themselves, parents, and peers. They cried a lot. They smiled a lot, and they praised God that He had begun to change them and gave them joy.
That service lasted all morning and till midafternoon. By then the stage area was a milling crowd of mostly young people confessing their sins, asking their fellows for forgiveness, and exulting that God was present to take away the sins.
I left in a sort of awe, but slightly troubled that it may have only been a flashback guilt trip for most and gone by the next day for another experience.
I was wrong. For months, groups of young people met to pray—many praying all night for guidance and praising the Lord.
But it was an overheard conversation between two young men in a bank foyer down the street from the college that I most remember. It was many months after the revival Sabbath, so I was surprised to overhear the word Jesus in conversation. “I have decided,” said the one to the other, “to model my life after the life of Jesus.”—Lincoln E. Steed serves
