I am deeply moved by the courage and carnage of Iwo Jima. As I read the pages of this history, everything in me cries out, "O Lord, don't let me waste my life!" Let me come to the end - whether soon or late - and be able to say to a family, a church, a city , and the unreached peoples of the earth, For your tomorrow, I gave my today. Not just for your tomorrow on earth, but for the countless tomorrows of your ever-increasing gladness in God." the closer I look at the individual soldiers in the World War II history, the more I felt a passion that my life would count and that I would be able to die well.

As rainy morning wore into afternoon and the fighting bogged down, the Marines continued to take casualties. Often it was the corpsmen [medics] themselves who died as they tried to preserve life. William Hoopes of Chattanooga was crouching besides a medic named Kelly, who put his head above a protective ridge and placed binoculars to his eyes - just for an instant - to spot a sniper who was peppering the area. In that instant the sniper shot him through the Adam's apple. Hoopes, a pharmacist's mate himself, struggled frantically to save his friend. "I took my forceps and reached into his neck to grasp the artery and pinch it off," Hoopes recalled. "His blood was spurting. He had no speech but his eyes were on me. He knew I was trying to save his life. I tried everything in the world. I couldn't do it. I tried. The blood was so slippery. I couldn't get the artery. I was trying so hard. And all the while he just looked at me. He looked directly into my face. The last thing he did as the blood spurts became less and less was to pat me on the arm as if to say, 'That's all right.' Then he died."

In this heart-breaking moment I want to be Hoopes and I want to be Kelly. I want to be able to say to suffering and perishing people, "I tried everything in the world…I was trying so hard." And I want to be able to say to those around me when I die, "It's all right. To live is Christ, and to die is gain."

When the Trifling Fog Clears

At these moments, when the trifling fog of life clears and I see what I am really on earth to do, I groan over the petty pursuits that waste so many lives - and so much of mine. Just think of the magnitude of sports - a whole section of the daily newspaper. But there is no section on God. Think of the endless resources for making your home and garden more comfortable and impressive. Think of how many tens of thousands of dollars you can spend to buy more car than you need. Think of the time and energy and conversation that go into entertainment and leisure and what we call "fun stuff". And add to that now the computer that artificially recreates the very games that are already so distant from reality; it is like a multi-layered dreamworld of insignificance expanding into nothingness.

Consumed with Clothes

Or think about clothes. What a tragedy to see so many young people obsessed with what they wear and how they look. Even Christian youth seem powerless to ask greater questions than "What's wrong with it?" Like: Will these clothes help me magnify Christ? Will they point people to him as the manifest treasure of my life? Will they highlight my personhood created in the image of God to serve, or will they highlight my sexuality? Or my laziness? Trust me, I'm not hung up on clothes. There are some pretty radical, Christ-exalting reasons to dress down. My plea is that you be more like a dolphin and less like a jelly-fish in the sea of fashion - and of contra-fashion (which is just as tyrannizing)…..

Where Are the Young Radicals for Christ?

When I stand, as it were, on the shores of Iwo Jima and let myself reenact those hours of courage and sacrifice, and remember that they were young, I cannot make peace with the petty preoccupations of most American life. One of them was really young. I read his story and wanted to speak to every youth group in America and say, do you want to see what cool is? Do you want to see something a thousand times more impressive than a triple double? Well, listen up about Jacklyn Lucas.

He'd fast talked his way into the Marines at fourteen, fooling the recruits with his muscled physique. Assigned to drive a truck in Hawaii, he had grown frustrated; he wanted to fight. He stowed away on a transport out of Honolulu, surviving on food passed along to him by sympathetic leathernecks on board.
He landed on D-Day [at Iwo Jima] without a rifle. He grabbed one lying on the beach and fought his way inland.

Now, on D+1, Jack and three comrades were crawling through a trench when eight Japanese sprang in front of them. Jack shot one of them through the head. Then his rifle jammed. As he struggled with it a grenade landed at his feet. He yelled a warning to the others and rammed the grenade into soft ash. Immediately, another rolled in. Jack Lucas, seventeen, fell on both grenades. "Luke, you're gonna die," he remembered thinking…

Aboard the hospital ship Smaaritan the doctors could scarcely believe it. "Maybe he was too damned young and too damned tough to die," one said. He endured twenty-one reconstructive operations and became the nation's youngest Medal of Honor winner - and the only high school freshman to receive it.

As I read that, I thought of all the things that high school kids think is cool. I sat on the porch where I was reading and thought, O God, who will get in their face and give them something to live for? They waste their days in a trance of insignificance, trying to look cool or talk cool or walk cool. They don't have a clue what cool is…

Of course, we do not use the word cool to describe true greatness. It is a small word. That's the point. It's cheap. And it's what millions of young people live for. Who confronts them with urgency and tears? Who pleads with them by the collar, so to speak, and loves them enough to show them a life so radical and so real and so costly and Christ-saturated that they feel the emptiness and triviality of their CD collection and their pointless conversations about passing celebrities? Who will waken what lies latent in their souls, untapped - a longing not to waste their lives?

My Heart's Plea

Oh, that young and old would turn off the television, take a long walk, and dream about feats of courage for a cause ten thousand times more important than American democracy - as precious as that is. If we would dream and if we would pray, would not God answer? Would he withhold form us a life of joyful love and mercy and sacrifice that magnifies Christ and makes people glad in God? I plead with you, as I pray for myself, set your face like flint to join Jesus on the Calvary road. "Let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come" (Hebrews 13:13-14). When they see our sacrificial love - radiant with joy - will they not say, "Christ is great"?

editor's note: the text above is an exerpt from John Piper's book Don't Waste Your Life.

let this not be an opportunity to point fingers at your peers who care about cars or clothes or whatnot. our first instinct is to go yell at some unsuspecting teenager when we, ourselves, are just as guilty of chasing after "coolness" in more subtle ways. rather than being quick to harp on other's idols, we must be examples of people who live for more than material things or status and other such temporary trash.

in the church, the desire to be cool is still present. cool has just become something different than at school. pretending not to care what other people think is a disease amongst the youth. it is yet another thin lie we hide behind. we must strive for more than to be looked up to by younger people, more than being thought of as a real leader, more than being thought of as all holy and putting the "lessers in their place", more than being the one who talks the most and loudest. we exist that Christ may be exalted. we must stop expending so much energy to put up a front and direct it towards that which is worthy.

also, i thought it'd be worth mentioning the war metaphor. some may find it hard to relate to but we must remember that the main theme behind this is not strength or valor or a willingness to buck authority to jump into the fray but rather we ought to be encouraged to take risks and make sacrifices for the sake of Christ and showing His love to the world. risk and sacrifice are not to be seen only on the battlefield or in the uncharted jungles of the mission field. sacrifices can be made for our friends at school. risks can be taken to preach the Gospel to our unsaved family members. every Christian regardless of occupation is called to take risks and sacrifice that the kingdom, that the family of God may be expanded.

our generation suffers from an out-of-wack set of priorities. we, in the church, spend most of our time asking the question "what's wrong with this or that?". we follow a a set of suburban, middle class prohibitions so that we can do our best to simply avoid sin. we ask the wrong question. the real question of our lives ought to be "does this exalt Christ?"

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