The following student report was submitted by Ambassador League Agent Lauren L. during the 2008-2009 League.
Mission: Research - Nature of Man
In the mid-1990's, a group of teens broke into empty houses, preschools and elementary schools. They brought sledge hammers and baseball bats with them and, once inside, used those objects to destroy the building from the inside out. Smashing toys and tables, windows and washing machines, there was nothing that these teens couldn't destroy –except themselves.
Several days after the damage was done and the authorities were contacted, the teens were caught and questioned. Officers asked them why they would even feel like doing this. They didn't really respond. They just glumly looked around the room and replied, "I dunno. It felt good to smash things."
After they were charged, psychologists examined their behavior from a security tape and analyzed it. The doctors said that the teens were experiencing the consequences of a life with no control. These kids destroyed the innocent facilities and homes because it empowered them; it healed them. But my question comes back to this: what outside force was oppressing these teens that pushed them this far?
It's the same thing all over again: someone else who felt they had little to no control in their life. So, in response, they look for something or someone to dominate to reestablish their position.
Let's take a larger look at this. A little boy is born in a house no bigger than a one-car garage in northern Europe. He is raised by an abusive father and a mother who nothing less than hard work and excellence. If at any time their son was to fall out of proper position, the boy was beat with a wooden paddle, over and over again, for several hours. The boy grows up and makes his way into a secret society. He works his way to the top, reorganizes the group, and creates an impressionable symbol to represent the group. By the late 1930's, the boy is now a man at the top of German politics, promising the country a society of balance and security. Ten years later, thousands of dead Jews and the lost lives of a couple million soldiers from and around the globe, he has set the world at war. People are segregated, starved and stabbed. Everyone is controlled by this man and his idea of peace. But the only one who finds peace in a world of war is the man who grew up in an oppressing household. He is the only one at peace because he finally has control.
What's my point? The great story of the human race is nothing more than each person trying to control the other. Whether it be simple, "fun" destruction or dominating the entire planet, people feel secure when they are in charge. Everyone is fighting for survival, and the only way to win is to destroy. Or so it seems to the humans.
But the funny thing is, they aren't even in control. The very one who created them, God, is watching their selfish destruction and he weeps. If only they would wake up and realize that they have no control. If only they would realize that the only control in the universe is found in Christ. If they bend down on humbled knee and repent of their wicked ways, He would forgive them and set them free from their oppressing lives. God would give them security. God would give them peace. God would give them control.
