Walking the home stretch of engagement has been fun, challenging, tearful and invigorating. My eyes have been opened to a whole new world of what it means to die to self and live for another person. Can anyone relate? Sometimes it is the hardest thing to focus on the needs of another before yourself.
I have dreams about leading a generation, about taking whole nations for Christ and about seeing the glory of the Lord cover the entire earth. Then I think to myself, what does this generation need? Do we need to see revival? The answer is yes. Do we need to see the glory of the Lord cover the earth? The answer is yes. But what does this generation need right now? My answer to that question is covenant.
Covenant is a word that should be scary from the outside and should not be even looked at unless one is really serious. I say that it should be scary because when a covenant is made; it is for life. There is no messing around; when you make a covenant you can’t break it.
In Jewish history when a covenant was made, you would cut an animal in half and both parties would walk through the middle of the animal. Both parties would say, do unto me as is done to this animal, if I break this covenant. Kill me, if I break this covenant, is the severity of what they were saying. 
When the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, He had him cut a heifer in two, a ram in two and a lamb in two. The Lord actually put a deep sleep upon Abraham and He walked through the three animals by himself stating that He alone would never break the covenant with Abraham and his descendants. Why do I bring this up?
I bring this up because this is what we lack in our society. We have somehow come to the conclusion that it is alright to give up on things. If we are unhappy, then something must be wrong. The media shows us that divorce is normal, and if things are not going the way we would like- get out. I am seeing why the devil wants to destroy the one thing that will shine Christ’s glory the most- that is the family.
What this generation needs is to understand Covenant and commitment. We need to realize what it means to enter into a covenant with another person and fight to the end for it. We need to realize that we just don’t give up when things get hard; we have to fight just as Jesus fought for his disciples. His disciples walked with him, they laughed with him and they witnessed miracles with him. Yet when things got hard the same disciples ran from him, denied him, and panicked like we all do.
This walk is not easy in our own strength. Let me rephrase that, this walk is impossible in our own strength. We will run from the challenges and will flee to comfort and security when things get hard if we don’t trust in Jesus. He will get us through and He will be our strength in our engagements, in our marriages, in our businesses, in our ministries. He is in it all and this is the refinement of becoming more and more like Christ.
I dedicate this blog to my beautiful fiancée, Erin Ellen McKenna, soon to be Mrs. Erin Ellen Mast.
May the Lord shower our generation with covenant and commitment and may the curse of divorce be broken through this generation’s actions of living out what we preach. God Bless.
