12 questions I wish every twentysomething would ask

Yesterday Relevant Magazine published an article entitled 11 Questions Every Twentysomething Should Ask. Written by Paul Angone, the premise is that as twentysomethings leave college and fully enter adulthood there is a lot of confusion on where one is headed, or where one wants to go for that matter. Angone writes,

“Often, the question of ‘what now?’ plagues us in our twenties like chickenpox. The more we scratch, the worse it itches. The overwhelming vagueness of ‘what am I doing with my life?’ can crush us like the bully who sat on our head in third grade.”

The article must have hit a nerve, because it’s been shared over 5,000 times since being published yesterday afternoon. Having just left the terrible twenties 113 days ago, I can testify that my twenties were full of more confusion and questions that I ever would have imagined. Some of that confusion has not left now that I’ve hit the magical age of 30 either. Looking back over the past decade of my life, I agree with Angone that “if we don’t ask the right questions, we will forever remain stuck.” Where I disagree with Angone is in discovering the right questions to ask.

The 11 questions every twentysomething should ask “to be successful,” while not wrong in and of themselves, nevertheless are not the right questions to be contemplating. Each question posed rests upon a me-centered philosophy of life rather than a God-centered philosophy, which concerns me coming from a Christian magazine. Unfortunately, much of my confusion in my twenties wasn’t because I thought too little about the ‘me’ and ‘I’ questions; it was because I thought too much about them.

Rather than go through each question in the Relevant article and explain why I disagree with its overall message, I’d like to share 12 questions I wish every twentysomething would ask to find true purpose and success. These are questions I’ve learned to ask myself and ones I wish I asked more often.

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God and Evil: The Case for God in a World filled with Pain – a book review

Image courtesy of Intervarsity Press

God and Evil (GAE), published this year through Intervarsity Press, is a book that deals with possibly the hardest questions humanity faces no matter one’s religion. Why is there suffering? Why is there evil and pain? And if God exists and he is good, how can we reconcile this with the evil we see and experience? The reality that people have wrestled with these questions for centuries demonstrates that in every generation we need men and women to reword the question and possible answers in modern-day vernacular for those who struggle to reconcile what they believe about God with what they experience on a daily basis. This is where GAE comes into play. After getting a feel for the books’ big picture and attention to detail, I was surprised at my final reaction. It’s a book I highly recommend, with only one word of caution.

Disillusioned Millennials

In a recent article that has spread like wildfire through social media, Rachel Held Evans discussed on CNN  why millennials are leaving the church – the evangelical church specifically. Evans, who identified herself as a millennial in the article, expounded on why we see the current trend of 20 something and early 30’s leaving the church.
It is not my wish to critique the strengths and weaknesses of Evan’s argument; others have done so in great depth and with real insight (see links below). Rather, as an evangelical millennial myself I want to comment on a recent trend I’ve noticed within my heart and life; one that played out in Evan’s article. I’d like to offer a few lessons learned on disillusionment to those of my generation who resonate with Evan’s critique specifically.