Yesterday, I saw this web comic. It started out with a little boy saying, "I wish I could be older." Then when he was an adult, "I wish I was younger." Then the next slide you him in a wheelchair next to a grave saying, "I wish I had appreciated the times more." It was kind of really depressing, but it was true. Every different stage in life comes with a different set of opportuneities, and a different set of limits. It can be easy to think about the limits, but it's best to think of the possibilities. What does this have to do with the Bible?
It can be easy to think, "I'm too young to do anything for the Church." But in our youth, that's the best time for us to study. The habits that you set when you're young are the habits that you will most likely keep for the rest of your life. The things that we learn when we are young are the things that stick with us our whole lives. Of course we learn a lot later in life as well, but the things that you are taught in your younger years are often the most important. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he shall not depart from it." So even if you're too young to teach a Bible class, you can still talk to your friends about the Bible, or just plain study so that you can use this knowledge to make sure you're on the right path, and so you can have all this knowledge so you can later be a Bible class teacher, or speak at ladies days, or whatever you want to do.
As you get older, the opportuneities to teach will become more and more frequant. Just because you're not an adult, that doesn't mean that you can't teach. I have several friends, and I do as well, who teach Bible class to the younger kids. You'd think that the kinds would just think they could walk all over you, but as long as you have a strong backbone, the kids will think that it is so cool that one of the teenagers is teaching their Bible class. Also, you're closer to their age than the adults, so you can connect with them better, as you remember that age better, and you remember exactly what kids like.
The first 18 years of life, so far from what I've heard (I'm only 15, so I don't really know much about what happens after I turn 18) are the best. It can be easy to want to grow up. But I want to challenge you to, at leas for this week, look at the situation that you're in and instead of thinking about what you wish it were, think about how good you can make it. After all, that's really the only way great things happen. :)
