Dr Paul Allen

Photo of merchandise inside Despair, Inc.'s Austin warehouse. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The human body starts dying at age 25. Our twenties slap us with the expiration date of sin’s curse ( Genesis 6:3): slowly, in our ligaments; tightly, in our muscle fibers ; subtly, checking for bumps; decimally, with a rising BMI. We feel death in our twenties; emotionally and relationally, in ugly and odious ways. Death latches its chain to our frame, slowly pulling us deep into an answer to the question “Death, where is your sting?” ( 1 Corinthians 15:55 ). Our twenties bring so many answers to that question — transition, failure, desperation, dependence, accusation, responsibility, moral failure, stagnation, unfulfillment. “ Sting ” isn’t sufficient. Our twenties can be a dark time. Aspects of Quarter-Life Crisis There are (at least) five feelings that overwhelm and disillusion the wandering young saints, day after day. 1. Disappointment “I thought things would be better.”

Image by digitaljournal.com via Flickr According to a  recent article in Newsweek , in 2010 there were: 141 million active blogs . 2 billion daily Google searches. 1,052,803 books published. 247 billion emails sent. 4.5 billion text messages sent. 10 billion songs downloaded on iTunes . In the midst of this avalanche of information I can’t help but think of Jesus ’ words to Martha : Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. (Luke 10:41–42) We can be troubled, and distracted, and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data available to us. But when you get down to it, only one thing really matters. If all the blogs were gone, and Google went down, and teens suddenly stopped texting, it wouldn’t really matter that much. There’s only one Word that really matters: God ’s Word. We have it. Let’s never let the mass of information available push away from the