Where Is Jesus ?

Where Is Jesus in Their Young Lives?

After concluding Youth Alpha, I left with a heart full of gratitude.

The testimonies shared were sincere, moving, and often deeply personal. I saw friendships formed, barriers lowered, laughter shared, and prayers offered with surprising honesty. For many of the youths, it felt like they had encountered something real.

And yet, as I reflected quietly afterward, another question lingered within me:

Where is Jesus in their young lives?

Not merely in the excitement of Alpha.
Not only in the warmth of community.
Not just in answered prayers or emotional moments.

But in the ordinary spaces of their everyday lives.

I found myself wondering whether many young people unconsciously come to see God mainly through outcomes.

God is present when prayers are answered.
God is good when life goes well.
God is near when emotions are strong.
God is real when there is breakthrough.

But what about the silence?
What about disappointment?
What about the long stretches where nothing seems to happen?

This is where I sense Spiritual Direction may have something important to offer the next generation.

Spiritual Direction is not about giving advice or fixing problems. It is about helping a person notice and respond to the presence of God already at work in their lives. It teaches us to ask deeper questions:

Where did you sense God today?
What stirred your heart?
What drained life from you?
What longing keeps returning?
What might God be inviting you to notice?

Young people today are surrounded by noise, pressure, comparison, and constant stimulation. Many are searching for identity, belonging, and meaning, even if they do not always have the language for it. They may know how to consume content about God, but not necessarily how to sit quietly with Him.

And perhaps that is one of the greatest invitations before us.

Not simply to teach youths how to believe in God, but to help them become attentive to Him.

To help them discover that Jesus is present:

in their questions,
in their loneliness,
in their friendships,
in their fears about the future,
in their hidden wounds,
and even in seasons when He feels absent.

Because the presence of God is not measured only by answered prayers.

Sometimes God is most deeply present in the waiting, the wrestling, and the listening.

As I continue reflecting on the Youth Alpha journey, I am increasingly convinced that what many young people need is not more activity alone, but spaces of holy attentiveness, places where they can learn to recognize the gentle movements of God in the midst of ordinary life.

Perhaps Spiritual Direction, in its simplest form, is just this:

Helping someone notice that Jesus has been walking with them all along.

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Where might Jesus already be present in the ordinary spaces of your life,
even in moments where He seems quiet or unseen?