Psalm 37:1 Envy

They say there's a heaven for those who will wait
  Some say it's better but I say it ain't
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
  The sinners are much more fun
You know that only the good die young
  I tell ya
Only the good die young
Only the good die young

    Billy Joel, Only the Good Die Young

Recent polls and studies agree that a majority of young people who have grown up in the church will leave the church within a few short years after finishing high school. For some reason we're not hanging on to our kids.

One reason is that the churches where they're growing up are not preparing them to think critically and to be intellectually prepared for the challenges they face outside the cocoon of their youth.

"We need to think more clearly, to teach more clearly. We need to stop using words like liberal and conservative and, instead, talk about things like critical thinking in the church. We should be talking about how to sort through what’s biblical and what’s not. How to “think Christian” is really, really important. " (David Embree, The State of Campus Ministry, Christian Standard Magazine)

Another common reason for young people leaving the church, perhaps greater than being ill-prepared intellectually, is the lure of the culture of the "unchurched".

Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong...

Psalm 37:1

Even those millennials and Generation Z who do stick with church involvement are highly likely to accept and adopt the philosophy and lifestyle of the post-modern, post-church world at large in which they spend their lives

They (we) look at the life-in-a-box rules taught by previous generations of Christians and then look out through the stained glass windows at the seeming freedom and fun of the rest of the world and think, "I want what they have."

Envy is not only wanting what someone else has, but being willing to go out of your way and compromise your otherwise pure principles to take it for yourself. It's usually thought of in terms of stealing or cheating or even committing violence against someone in order to take what they have.

In the context of young believers envying the lives of their unbelieving peers, they're willing to steal from the lost people around them the opportunity to see God-flavors and God-colors of a life lived intentionally for the Lord.

Maybe they're willing to make that selfish choice because the church in which they grew up never actually set concrete examples and trained them in how to be salt and light.

Most of them, having made that choice to be a n imitator of those who do wrong rather than an imitator of Christ, leave the church altogether. A lot of those continue to think of themselves as believers of a sort. They're the ones who will shrug and answer "sure" when asked if they still believe. But they want their cake and to eat the forbidden fruit, too.

Psalm 37 provides a curriculum for teaching and leading young believers in a better way to make choices about the bert way to live.