Your Children are Rotting

Where are you in your big churches that you have not made for me? Do you seek me wholeheartedly when you come to my house? No, you come to see and be seen. You come to get blessings and yet you refuse to do what I tell you. You ignore the moral depravity rotting your children. You would rather entertain yourselves then stop the innocent bloodshed that goes on behind closed doors.

I was recently reminded of this word the Lord gave me back in 2009, and which I just published in my blog, "The Days are Numbered - Heed the Word of the Lord". In Malachi 4:6 it tells us, "He will return the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse."

When the hearts of the fathers are not to their children it lets us know a curse will be released upon the land. Aside from scripture or any moral teaching, statistics show that every social ill increases when fathers are removed from the home. Everything from teen pregnancy, suicide, violence, high school dropouts, incarceration and depression increase when a child grows up without their father.

When we take a look at what is happening in our society we can see that our nation is living under a curse. The violence and mass shootings in our schools and public places will not decrease with increased gun laws because the issue is not about guns, but about the hearts of our people. Guns have been around for hundreds of years and mass shootings were never common place as they are now. So what has changed? Guns haven't changed, hearts have.

Recently I was in one of our failing public schools and was overseeing the in-school suspensions. In the one day that I spent there these were the stories that I heard from the students. (Names have been changed.)

The first one was 15-year-old Sheena. She walked into the room, "I fu**ing hate this school." For anyone who has spent any amount of time in some of the failing public schools you know that this kind of talk is not unusual and it's gotten to the point where teachers don't even respond to it anymore. Kids talk like this and the teacher just keeps on going. (I could get into this more, but for much of it, it involves either a lack of support for discipline by the administration or pure weariness and being overwhelmed by all the other issues the teachers are dealing with from the students.)

So Sheena goes to the back of the room and kicks her foot up on the desk. Then she turns on her phone and begins listening to music. I ask her to turn it down because there's other students trying to study.

"I'm minding my own business back here and you really starting to piss me off!"

I walked back to her and calmly asked, "Why are you so angry?"

"I'm not fu**king angry".

"You're hurting that's why you're acting like that."

"Look, I'm not talking to you!"

I walked to my desk to get my business card and came back and handed it to her. "I have a non-profit working with men in prison. If you ever need someone to talk to feel free to contact me."

She threw the paper on the floor. I walked back to my desk and sat down.

"I need to go the bathroom."

"Okay, well you'll need to be escorted because I can't let you go by yourself," I said.

"Call Miss Oz!"

"If you can ask nicely. If you say, 'Will you please call Miss Oz?' I will call her."

"Man, do I look like a fu**ing please and thank you kind of bi**h?! Call Miss Oz!"

At this point I began to pray in the spirit because I knew that what I was dealing with could not be dealt with in the flesh. So, I sat in silence as I looked at her and began to bind up this spirit.

"Are you fu**ing tone deaf bi**h! I said call Mizz Oz!"

I still remained silent.

"I'm going to go off in a minute if you keep pushing me. What the f**k are you looking at? You better stop staring at me. Man, I'm telling you, you gonna make me go off! Call Miss Oz!"

Without raising my voice I said, "I will if you ask nicely."

"You really pissing me off now!"

I continued praying in the spirit. "I send blessings your way," I said.

"I don't want your fu**ing blessings."

"I send love your way," I said. "I send peace your way."

She suddenly got quiet and looked at me almost confused by my response.

"Will you please call Miss Oz?" she asked.

"Yes, I sure will."

After returning from the bathroom she slowly walked by my desk and eyed me. As she sat down at her desk she looked at the floor. The piece of paper she had thrown there was gone.

Like a little girl she quietly said, "Oh, you took the piece of paper?"

"Yes, would you like it back?"

"Yes"

I walked back to her desk and began to talk to Sheena. Long story short this girl's father had pretty much abandoned her and she wasn't living with her mother. She was staying at her best friend's mother's house. Her two brothers were in prison. Her sister had been killed by a hit and run, and she had been molested several times by different men starting at the age of three.

We had a good heart to heart talk and I asked her if she would like me to pray for her? She said, "Yes". I placed my hand on her shoulder and began to pray peace, healing and favor over her. The next time I saw her instead of being cursed out I was being given hugs.

So yes, Sheena was angry and yes, she was hurting, but Sheena wasn't the only child hurting that day.

There was Kyra who was sent to in-school suspension because of a fight she was about to get in. After talking to her she told me it was a friend of hers who was going to jump her along with five other girls because her friend's ex-boyfriend liked her. In our conversation she mentioned that her brother was "messed up". When I asked why she said that she lowered her voice and leaned in.

"Well, me and my brother saw my step-dad kill his father in front of us."

"Have you gotten any counseling for that?" I asked.

"No, my mom didn't think we needed any."

I prayed with her for healing and protection from this gang of girls that were trying to jump her.

Then there was Sam. He said nothing the entire class and had his hoody over his head the whole time. When I walked by I saw him writing in big letters across his notepad:

HOPELESS

I showed him a post I had written on Facebook earlier that day that said:

You will never be helpless so long as you have hope, but if you become hopeless you will soon convince yourself you are helpless. Hope is the foundation to overcoming every obstacle sent your way. Never lose hope - never. And our hope is in Christ's promises for our lives.

"Did you write that?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered. "You can copy it if you like."

He took out a pencil and begin to write it down on his notepad.

Then there was Montrell. He had a tattoo on his arm that said FAITH. "I like that tattoo," I said. "What made you get that?" I asked. He begin to explain a number of his tattoos and then pointed to one on his hand that said, "Life goes on."

"That one is for my little brother," he said.

"What happened to your brother?" I asked.

"My dad was into some stuff he shouldn't have been and one night at a party a fight broke out so me and my brother took off. We were running down an alley and some people gunned down my brother and killed him."

Then there was Mackenzie. She was in school suspension for yelling and cussing at her teacher. She had quite the mouth on her. We got to talking and she told me lived with her grandmother. Her mother had died when she was five from cancer.

"Where's your dad at?" I asked.

"He's a piece of sh**."

He was an addict and had been most of her life. "What's your dad's name?" I asked.

"Josh"

"Would you like me to pray for your dad?" I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders, "Sure".

I prayed that his addiction would be broken. "A father is supposed to care for and protect his daughter. Lord, let her father see how his behavior has made Mackenzie feel rejected and has hurt her," I prayed. She looked up and her eyes began to water.

Then there was Damonte. They didn't have a car right now because his mom got into an accident and they didn't have insurance on the vehicle.

"My mom gave my dad some money for a truck, but he never brought the truck over to the house. I told my mom not to give him the money until he brought the truck over. He's not good for his word," he said.

"Do you see your dad much?" I asked.

"He pops in out and every now and then. I live with my mom and my stepdad."

"How long have your mom and stepdad been married?" I asked.

"Well, he's not really my stepdad. He lives with my mom. They've been together maybe two or three years."

These were only a handful of kids that I spoke to in a single day in a school full of hundreds of children. Trust me when I say there are thousands upon thousands of more stories like this in schools all across America.

Our children are angry and behaving violently because they are hurting. They need someone to listen to them. We cannot keep turning a blind eye to our children's pain and trauma and think that it will not come back to haunt us. They are screaming out for someone to listen to them, for someone to love them, for someone to say, "I hear you and you have every right to be angry about what has happened to you."

As a society we have become so consumed with our own insatiable appetites for entertainment, self-fulfillment, sexual desires and gratification that we have neglected the needs of our children. Even the church has been neglectful in this manner. We are forever building bigger churches and spending more money on education and newer schools and yet neglecting the most important asset of all - their souls.

But this neglect has been a long time in the making. It started in the 60's when prayer was taken out of school and then the assault really began in 1973 when Roe v. Wade was passed, making it legal to murder our children in the womb nationwide.

We cannot expect that a nation who kicks God out of school and replaces Him with drag queens reading stories to elementary kids (yes, this is taking place in our schools now), has aborted more than 60 million children since 1973, and is now telling children that boys can become girls and girls can become boys; that it won't have repercussions.

Anyone who has spent any amount of time in our public schools can tell you we are in trouble. I've seen kids throwing chairs, flipping over desks, cussing out teachers, cussing out each other, six-year-old's threatening to stab other students, multiple students walking out of class and running down the hallways, countless fights in the classroom, blood on a teacher's shirt from breaking up a fight, a sixth-grader getting his head stomped on in the hallway by another kid - all of this in only a few months in our public schools.

This doesn't count for the other stories I've heard from other students and teachers. If this doesn't alarm you, then do not complain when mass shootings increase and an unruly and angry generation eventually enslaves you. What I have seen in the schools is a brewing volcano that if ignored is going to blow and when it does the fire and ashes will consume everything around it.

But the good news is, it doesn't have to. As a society we can change this. It begins first of all by us valuing life in the womb. And then by valuing life after it's born. It means making time for our children, to listen to them, to play with them, to interact with them and teach them right from wrong.

It also begins by the church leading by example. This means we must get outside of the four walls of the church and be the church in people's every day lives. Prayer has to come outside of the traditional prayer meetings and meet people in their everyday lives, at the gas station, in the grocery aisle, at the coffee shop - everywhere we go.

We have to take time out of our busy schedules to listen to people's stories and empathize with their pain. We have to help meet the needs of people who are in lack. We have to help strengthen families so that men can be the strong fathers and leaders they are called to be for their wives and their children.

Change is possible. Sheena and these kids have proved that, if only we will take time to listen, care and do something about it.