[Principal's Article] Young Men, Don’t Let the World Hollow You Out

Hey, lads, I want you to listen for a second. This is your favorite principal speaking. If you’ve spent much time online or around certain crowds, you’ve probably seen that look on some guys’ faces—the ones who are always shouting slogans, raging online, or jumping from one cause to the next. Tibet, Ukraine, Palestine, Somalia, Minneapolis—anywhere but home. It’s like they’re standing on the edge of a cliff they can’t even name, yelling so loud they don’t have to hear what’s screaming inside them.

Past all the anger and the memes and the “I’m fighting the system” vibe, what’s really there isn’t strong belief. It’s fear. Deep-down terror that maybe, just maybe, they’re nothing special—and no amount of likes, protests, or moral high ground will change that.

The world didn’t make you this way overnight. It’s been a slow, careful tearing down of the things God designed to give a young man like you a solid place to stand: your Father (both your earthly dad and your Heavenly Father), your Faith in Christ, and your Family (the people God puts around you to love and be loved by).

These are the three anchors God gave us to know who we are and where we belong in His big story. When they’re ripped away—when you’re told your dad’s authority is just “toxic,” that trusting Jesus is for weak people, that family is optional or even oppressive—you’re left with an empty space inside.

And the Bible warns us exactly what happens next. Jesus said:

“When an unclean spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” (Matthew 12:43-45, NIV)

That’s not just an old story—it’s the exact thing happening to so many guys your age. The old “furniture” of life—God, duty, real purpose, connection to something bigger than yourself—gets thrown out. You’re told the empty room is freedom. But an empty heart never stays empty. Something darker always moves in to fill it.

You’ve been fed lies since you were little: that your natural desire to protect, provide, lead, and even fight for what’s right is actually bad and needs to be medicated or shamed away. That your grandfathers weren’t brave builders of anything good—they were just oppressors. That the God who made you and loves you is just a myth used to control people.

So you reject the Father in every way: no real dads to look up to, no strong families to belong to, no unchanging truth from God’s Word to guide you. You think you’re becoming some super-independent hero. But instead, you end up feeling like a ghost—alive on the outside, but hollow inside. And no one can live long in that emptiness without something rushing in to take over.

A guy with real meaning—rooted in Jesus, honoring his parents, building toward a family one day, anchored in God’s unchanging truth—can’t be pushed around easily. He has a North Star no government, no company, no trend can move. But the empty guy? He’s desperate. He’ll grab onto anything that promises to make the hole go away, even if it’s a cardboard cause handed to him by the very powerful people who helped create the emptiness in the first place. I know because I’ve been there. Beads around my neck, Free Palestine on my T-Shirt, ready to beat the drum for every liberal cause that came along. But there’s no peace in that place.

That’s why the yelling never stops. The moment it does, the silence comes back—the 3 a.m. thoughts, the dread, the fear that nothing matters. So the woke lad fights harder, shouts louder, because the fight is the only thing keeping the void from swallowing him whole.

You’re not really rebelling against “the man” when you follow that path. You’re marching right alongside the biggest companies, universities, media, and systems in the world—while they call it “resistance.” The real rebels today are the quiet ones: the guy who chooses to honor God and build a family even when culture says it’s pointless or harmful; the girl who embraces motherhood when the world calls it a burden; the young person who still believes the Bible is true even when everyone else is “updating” it.

Don’t become the hollow man. Don’t let the world sweep your heart clean and leave it open for worse things to move in.

Jesus didn’t come to leave you empty—He came to fill you. He said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). He wants to be the One who lives in that space inside you, not seven worse spirits.

Right now, while you’re young, choose Him. Choose real faith over borrowed rage. Choose family, fatherhood (whether as a son or one day as a dad), and the unchanging love of God over the temporary fixes the world offers.

Because if you don’t fill that space with Christ, something else will—and it won’t be kind.

You’re not nothing. You’re made in God’s image, loved enough that Jesus died for you. Don’t trade that truth for a cardboard sword and a lifetime of running from silence.

Hold fast. The real fight is to stay full of Him. 

Live your life so you can look back and say to yourself, “Okay, I’ve slipped up, I made some bad choices, but I’m on track now and I don’t have too much be ashamed of. I think Dad would like what I’ve become.” You’ll be amazed how good that feels.