How would you counsel this 14 year old girl?

[Stephanie1129]

Hi, everyone! [I also posted this under the full-time ministers' forum, since I wasn't sure where it fit].

This is a fictional scenario about a 14-year-old girl wrestling with a faith issue. I'm interested in your opinions as to what you would say to her if she came to you for advice.

Thanks!

Katie is a happy 14-year-old girl who just started ninth grade. She goes to youth group and loves to write worship songs. Her parents are in charge of an outreach ministry for college students in their small town, and put on inclusive events that are not just for the purpose of evangelism and Bible study but are also meant to make the out-of-town students feel welcome and provide fun socialization. Therefore many attend these events, such as bonfires on the beach and movie nights, who are not necessarily Christians.

One of the regular attenders to Katie's parents' events is a 21-year-old Indian engineering student named Satish. Satish is a Hindu but is open-minded and interested in learning about all religions. He is a very polite, intelligent, and handsome young man and Katie can't help but feel a little attraction to him. However, their interactions with each other have always very surface, light-hearted, and respectfully distant. They have only interacted in passing within the context of small talk in the group setting. Katie – though no doubt attracted to Satish on an emotional level, as she is a young teenage girl and can't help it, and does tend to think about him a lot – has never entertained any inappropriate thoughts or fantasies about him and the idea of the two of them being a couple one day when Katie is older has never even crossed her mind. Actually, she hears Satish mention his family's plans to find a wife for him in India and is heart-warmed and prays that they will be very happy together.

One day, Satish announces that he must travel suddenly to India to be with his ailing mother. He drops out of the engineering program at the university and plans to finish his studies back in his country where he can be closer to his mother. Katie is very disappointed – not just because she will miss him but also because she believes her father to be a good Christian influence in his life. She begins to pray that Satish will return. She prays for Satish regularly.

Miracle of miracles, Satish changes his mind. In a few months, he returns from India to finish his degree back at the university in Katie's home town. Katie is overjoyed to see Satish back at the college group and also gets gets a part-time job babysitting his 4-year-old niece for his brother and sister-in-law, who have also since settled close by, through Satish. Not only that, Katie prays that Satish will find an article that her father wrote about the claims of Christianity and gave to him years ago, and that he will go to church on Easter Sunday of his own initiative. Both prayers are answered in the affirmative.

One night, as Katie is trying to fall asleep, she is suddenly bombarded by thoughts that Satish is an idol to her and that she has an inappropriate romantic attraction to him. She is terrified, and in that moment she feels like she is cut off from God and banished from his presence. For the first time since she began having her daily time with God, Katie cannot pray, sing, or read her Bible. Eventually, she does get back together with God but things are not the same. She keeps trying to repent from her idolatrous obsession and attraction to Satish, but nothing makes her feel forgiven. She wrestles day after day in tears trying to figure out precisely what her sin was so that she can repent of it. Katie is in despair. Pretend you are her youth group leader, and she comes to you one day crying because her relationship with God has been destroyed and she doesn't know how to get back into his favor, no matter what she tries. What is most perplexing to her is that God answered many of her prayers for Satish and she says she can't understand why he would encourage her sin.

What do you think is going on, and what would you say to her

[chapmic]

I would explain to her the difference between guilt and shame. God says we are all guilty of falling short from perfection and it is true but Jesus forgives us. Jesus love for her never went away, she can not earn his love he gives it to us naturally because its his nature to love. The devil is try to use her impure thought to convince her that God is not with her anymore. Satan can not defeat Jesus one on one but he can defeat people one on one so his trick is to convince us that we are Separated from Jesus. A person has to learn to guard against their own emotions because they will make you feel like something is true when it is not. God forgave her already she has to forgive herself. To be forgiven it just take a simple confession to Jesus, that's what makes him awesome. Today is a new day so it is an opportunity to make right what we fell of short of yesterday. Let the past be the past because the present is a gift!

[DaveW]

Chapmic has some very good points.

I would add that she should consider her feelings and attraction to him very carefully.  The devil is ace at lying to us, even about our own thoughts and feelings.

the devil told her that her attraction was an idol.  Was it? Or was it just normal adolescent feelings? (which are God given)

She now feels far away from God.  Is she really? I would say not; again this is a lie from the devil.

And she also needs to understand the difference between conviction from the holy Spirit and the condemnation of the devil.  What she describes falls clearly into the latter IMO.

If you are trying to repent and it goes absolutely nowhere - it is often condemnation based on a lie and you really have nothing to repent from.

[chosenone]

I think she needs to know that those thoughts that bombarded her werent from God, but satan trying to weigh her down with guilt when she had done nothing wrong.  He loves to do that. Also he is using it to try and damage her relationship with God and make her think its Him who is doing this.  Pray for her for protection, and ask her to do the same each day, and also give her reassurance that God is a good Dad and doesn't act that way towards His children. Tell  her that as His child, she never left His favour.