Tsunamis grow slowly.

They don’t just shoot-up from the ocean. They are the result of earthquakes or other seismic events. Movements of the earth far beneath the sea, dramatic changes we don’t see or feel.

But these movements lead to massive waves, waves so great they destroy whatever is in their paths.

I am neither a prophet or the son of a prophet, but I do wonder if we are beginning to see a transformation in the thinking of many of our youth. Maybe the thinking of an entire generation.

There are three areas where this possible shift is most evident: Economics, unborn life, and marriage.

Millennials and Economics

First, consider a recent shift in the opinion of many young people concerning pro-growth, market-based economics.

Writing last year in Time magazine, Prof. Jean Twenge of San Diego State University commented that “the percentage of high school seniors who identified as conservative rose from 23% in 2000 to 29% in 2015, creating a group more conservative than the Reagan-era GenX teens of the 1980s.”

This trend seems to be continuing. “Democrats lose ground with millennials,” announced Reuters last month. A poll conducted by Reuters with the Ipsos research firm found “voters ages 18 to 34” support for “Democrats over Republicans for Congress slipped by about nine percentage points over the past two years, to 46 percent overall. And they increasingly say the Republican Party is a better steward of the economy.”

These younger voters came of age during the Great Recession that began in 2008. They witnessed an era when jobs were scarce, and more and more people started receiving welfare. Now, over the past roughly 16 months, they have seen not just the grudging growth of the Obama era but inklings of the robust engine of America’s economy many of us have long known.

Of course, there’s a lot of conflicting information out there. Part of the reason is that young people’s opinions change frequently. They’re sorting things out. But as reality hits them — children, mortgages, taxes, and the visible evidence of a growing economy — they are trending toward a confidence in economic liberty and the prosperity that comes with it.

Pro-Life Millennials

So it is with the pro-life movement. We are witnessing a gathering change in the way our youth culture views life within the womb.

Take a look at popular culture. It is from television and social media that younger folks take many of their moral clues. And in recent days, that might actually be a reason for optimism.

For example, there was a recent Subaru ad showing a young pregnant woman and her husband. They are so anxious “to share all the wonders of the world with their unborn baby, they’re getting a head start.” Note the phrase, “unborn baby” — Subaru’s words, not mine.

The ad depicts the young couple going everywhere from the ocean to the forest so that their unborn little one can begin enjoying the wonders of creation from its earliest, pre-born days.

Then there was the recent Doritos Super Bowl ad that showed a woman having difficulty giving birth until her husband starts enticing the baby with chips. Suddenly, the baby flies out of the womb and into the father’s arms, apparently eager to have his first bite of Doritos.

The National Abortion Rights Action League was enraged, saying the ad “humanized” the “fetus.” A baby, inches from being born, is a “fetus,” not a person. The cultists of the abortion culture dare not give an inch — literally — because if they acknowledge the unborn child is a person even for the few seconds prior to her exiting the womb, they realize their game is lost.

Why? Because to admit that the baby in the womb is a person, even if only in her final minutes before birth, they are admitting that the location of the little life is irrelevant to her humanity. And, thus, the stench of the “it’s only a fetus” lie becomes unbearable.

Ultrasounds show what the abortion industry dreads: The fact that the being within the womb is a person, distinct from her mother.

That’s why ultrasounds are now eagerly sought by young pregnant women. And it’s why an Israeli company called PulseNmore Ltd. “is working on the final stages of their handheld ultrasound device” that will be able to “connect to any smartphone and be used to view unborn babies, take ultrasound images of them and communicate with doctors.”

Millennials and Marriage

Finally, there’s the world’s oldest social institution, marriage. According to the Gallup organization, of roughly 73 million Millennials in the U.S., as of 2014, almost exactly 60 percent had never been married. Cohabitation is common and so is the lack of children. These things are troubling.

But there’s one lining that’s true silver: Married Millennials tend not to get divorced.

Tragically, “among U.S. adults ages 50 and older, the divorce rate has roughly doubled since the 1990s,” according to a 2017 report by Pew Research. But the same survey found that among people 25-39, the divorce rate dropped by more than 20 percent between 1990 and 2015.

Why? Maybe because so many of them felt the sharp sting of their parents’ divorces. They take marriage seriously, as they should. Infidelity, apathy, and the harsh effects of divorce on its most vulnerable victims, children, are things many under-40s want to avoid like the plague.

All of this being said, most younger people are sympathetic to things like cohabitation, same-sex marriage and severe gun control. But at least on economics, marriage, and the sanctity of life, maybe we’re seeing a new recognition that life, liberty, and character matter.

Is this the beginning of a giant wave of change? Maybe, maybe not. But we can hope, pray, and personally model the things that help lives flourish. Christians talk a lot about cultural decay; I’ve certainly done my share. But let’s also build on the signs of hope around us, in the confidence that whatever the visible outcome, our labor will not be in vain.