to be grown up.

I didn't watch the 2013 VMA's over this past weekend, but like most Americans, my twitter and facebook feed blew up over Miley Cyrus' shocking and over-sexualized performance.  I wasn't surprised when I read the comments, knowing the direction her music had been heading in over the past couple of years and so I shrugged most of it off.  Usually when I hear gossip over celebrities I don't turn on the television, partly because I've never been one to follow celebrity drama and partly because I know that continuously immersing myself in our sex-loving culture every time a celebrity does something jaw-dropping probably will add up to be a stumbling block for my walk with Christ.

But for some reason, I youtubed her performance today.  And for once, the entertainment culture didn't beckon me to stumble and didn't make me day dream of a worldly life.

For once, I sat heartbroken, eyes glazed over with tears, feeling the heart of God for His daughter on that stage.

Not long ago, Miley was a Disney Channel superstar and a role model to so many young girls.  Now she seems to be doing everything in her power to let the world know that she's 20 years old and that she's all grown up.

I am a campus minister at The College of New Jersey, a missionary to students ages 18-22 years old.

Miley, at age 20, is the average age of my students.

I sat on my couch, cringing and mourning over the images that I was watching on my computer, thinking of the thousands of ~20 year olds that I see walk past me every day on campus.

Miley wanted to grow up and, in this culture that we live in, sex is the way to do just that.  She never heard the message that God created her to be a woman and that He has plans and a purpose for that womanhood.  She never heard the message that to be a woman, in the way God intended, is to follow Christ.  The message that is portrayed in this day and age is that if you want to be a woman, you must become a sex object.

So who can blame her, really?  Miley responded to the culture that she grew up in.  Sex, to America, is what draws the line between being a girl and being a woman.  Not the biblical Truth that God created man and woman in His image, to be like Him and to glorify Him.  Not the biblical Truth that there is a God who loves her and gave His life because He couldn't bear to not make a way for her to be in a relationship with Him.

And she definitely hasn't heard in this culture that even through the sin and the ways she's refused Him, He stands with open arms of grace, eager to welcome His daughter home.

The only difference between Miley and the average 20 year old in our society is that she was raised in the fame and money that allowed her to strut her "I'm a woman" announcement on stage at the VMA's.  The reality is that the average college student is raised in that same exact culture.  Maybe the women on campus aren't going to class in their underwear and promiscuously dancing on stage in front of the whole world.  Maybe they aren't as public or outlandishly jaw-dropping in their actions, but those once-little-girls are sent the same message as Miley that to be a woman and to be liked is to be about sex and fame and independence.

The average college student is a version of Miley Cyrus:  a person who was raised in a culture that tells them their value is based on their sex appeal and their independence is based on their ability to break every social taboo without caring what people think.  They are 20 year olds searching for ways to explore this new start to adulthood, wanting to be desired and loved and heard.

But there is a God who desires them and loves them and hears them.  There is a God who created them and yearns for them to turn to Him, and who delights in blessing them.

The culture we live in is rapidly progressing in what it considers to be it's sexual norms and ideals, which means that the average 20 year old experienced a lot more of this sexual revolution growing up than the average 20 year old five years ago did.  The culture we live in traces easy pathways for females to go from girls to sex objects in an instant.

I want to see them go from girls to women of God.

I want those 20 year olds to know that life isn't about what the media says it's about.  It's not about money and sex and fame and drugs and fun and success.  It's about saying "yes" to Jesus because He's already said "yes" to you.  I want to invite them into a deep encounter with God that will transform their lives, rather than watch them stumble into false promises of fulfillment that will instead leave them empty inside.

The average American receives the message every day that this Miley-pattern of growing up is good and normal.  I'm not talking about prostitutes or strippers or porn stars, but the average American 20 year old is on a trajectory that is headed toward spiritual death because of the lies that this culture feeds her daily.

Today I wept for Miley.  And for every 20 year old at TCNJ that thinks she has to be like her to be grown up.  Today, more than ever, I was reminded of why I am a missionary to college students.

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