“Mentoring another is gratitude in action for what you have received from others.”
Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – May 27, 2026
At the window of my house I looked out through the lattice. I saw among the simple, I noticed among the young men, a youth who lacked judgment. Proverbs 7:6-7
My wife, Rita, and I know a couple, Jack and Gerri, who have become special friends. They relentlessly and lovingly invest in young people. Some are heading off to college, needing encouragement to seek out faithful friends, tools for wise money management, or a reminder to stay engaged with their family as they send them off to school. The mentorship may be six days, six months, or six years. Their retirement years have become relational investment opportunities.
The writer of Proverbs was paying attention. He looked out his window and noticed a young man drifting, not yet fallen but heading toward a path that would cost him dearly. That moment of observation is itself a model for every older, wiser believer. Are you looking? Are you paying attention to the young people within your line of sight who are navigating life with more confidence than wisdom and more energy than direction? Most young people carry a quiet hunger for someone to invest in them. Beneath the bravado and the self-sufficiency that youth often wear as armor, there is a heart that knows it needs help. They have not yet graduated from the school of hard knocks. Their knowledge is sincere but incomplete, their judgment developing but not yet seasoned. What they need, and often cannot bring themselves to ask for, is the attention of someone older who has walked the road ahead and is willing to turn around and reach back. That someone may be you.
Look at your circle of influence with fresh eyes. It may be a son or daughter standing at a critical crossroads. A young colleague at work who is talented but making decisions that will limit their future. A young person from your church who shows up faithfully but carries questions they have never felt safe enough to ask. God does not place people in our lives accidentally. The young person in your orbit may be there by divine intention, waiting for you to notice and to reach out. Mentors are not required to be perfect. In fact, some of the most powerful mentoring happens through honest conversation about failure, about the mistakes you made, the lessons they cost you, and what you wish someone had told you before you made them. A mentor’s failures, honestly shared, can serve as guardrails to prevent a younger person from unnecessary pain. Humility about your own journey is not weakness in a mentor. It is one of the most powerful tools you carry.
The investment does not require a formal program or a complicated curriculum. Read a book together, perhaps one a month. Meet over coffee and talk about how it challenged your thinking or changed your behavior. Show up consistently. Ask good questions. Listen more than you lecture. The relationship itself is the curriculum.
Titus 2 gives this practice the weight of apostolic instruction: older women teaching younger women, older men urging younger men toward wisdom and self-control. This is not optional enrichment for the spiritually ambitious. It is the normal, expected, commanded culture of a healthy Christian community.
And consider this. Someone did it for you. Someone took time, showed patience, and invested wisdom in your development. Mentoring a young person is gratitude in action. It is returning a gift you received by passing it forward to someone who needs it just as much as you once did. Ask God today, in whom are you calling me to invest?
Prayer
Lord, open my eyes to the young person you have placed in my path. Give me the wisdom, patience, and humility to invest in them faithfully. Let my failures and my faith both serve their purpose in my growth. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Application
This week, identify one young person in your circle of influence and take one intentional step toward them, a conversation, an invitation for coffee, or a simple expression of genuine interest in their life and their future.
Related Reading
Proverbs 13:20, 15:22, 27:17; 1 Corinthians 4:15; 2 Timothy 2:2; Titus 2:3-4
Worship Resource
Ellie Holcomb: All of My Days- Psalm 23
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