What I would say at your graduation

(I have not been invited to speak at anyone’s high school graduation in years, and am not unhappy about that in the least.  Sitting through the lengthy program–sometimes outside in the sun!–and eventually rising to try to convey some heavy thoughts to a crowd interested in a thousand things other than my message, no thank you.  So, I’ll just post a commencement address here. Thank you very much. Oh, and congratulations.)

“Thank you, Superintendent!  Congratulations, graduates. And may I say, you look beautiful today.  Even the fellow on the front row who appears not to be wearing pants under his robe.

Today is a great day in your life.  But don’t let it be the high point. In fact, if you do life well, you will forget almost everything that happens today, as a hundred other great events in your life will crowd out these memories. So, savor the moment. It’s fleeting.

Here is what I’d like to convey to you. Got your pencil and paper ready? This will be on the test!

1) Keep on growing.

You’re not ‘you’ yet; in some ways you’re still an embryo.

When looked at through the lens of your complete life, you are today graduating from the 3rd grade. You have so much to learn, so much farther to go. This is no time to quit growing.

Someone in my high school told of a classmate rowing his boat out into the middle of the lake and dumping all his textbooks overboard.  His new high school diploma was all he would be needing. This is suicidal.  Not to say stupid.

I hope you didn’t love high school too much. One of the worst things that can happen to any of us is to have hit our peak in high school, to have loved it so much that we never want to leave, and to spend the rest of our days trying to recapture those moments.

Far better to have been a little frustrated in your schooling that “they” weren’t teaching something you needed, that “they” were wasting much of your time, that you could do better than this. This angst, if we may call it that, has a way of jet-propelling you out of school toward the next stage.

That’s good. You’re so ready to get on to the next thing.

2) Seek God’s direction in everything.

Ask God where He wants you to go to school, what major to choose, which organizations to join. Pray about everything.

Never let James 4:2 apply to you. “You have not because you ask not.”

Ask! (Not just to get information, but for direction.  God is not into giving advice but ruling over all aspects of our lives. “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly,” Jesus said in John 10:10.)

3) Try lots of things.

If you don’t know what you want to do with the rest of your life, you are normal.

It’s okay to admire your friend who knew from the 6th grade that he wanted to be a math teacher or a paleontologist, a NASCAR engineer or a nuclear physicist.  If that’s not you, don’t panic.  There’s still time if you will keep on growing.

Volunteer at a homeless kitchen. Take a summer course in computer science or raising rhododendrons or Churchill during the Second World War.  Try to get in on a summer mission trip somewhere, and while you’re there explore the area.

Your summer jobs (or part-time jobs during the semester) will be great opportunities to “try on” different roles.  Can you help out in the small animal hospital?  Run errands at the courthouse for a lawyer friend? Do research for your preacher? Be an aid at the local nursing home?

4) If you get a chance to travel to a foreign country, grab it.

If possible stay with a family in that country.  Learn all you can about how they live. Restrain the urge to brag about what you have back at home, but ask lots of questions. Soak up everything you can about what they have and do not have and how they make do.

Few things will make you appreciate the liberties and opportunities of America like living for a brief time in another country, even one so close as Mexico or Canada.

5)  Learn from others.

Don’t isolate yourself or treat your Christian faith like it would disappear if you exposed it to the light of day.

If in your travel and continuing education you run into strange new religions and hear professors who teach weird concepts of God and who attack your Bible, don’t panic. Truth has nothing to fear. Anything that drives you to study your own faith and solidify what you believe is your friend.

It’s not unbelief to question what you believe and why.  In fact, when our Lord said “I am the Truth” He was inviting just such inquiry.  (Anyone claiming to be Truth is just asking for it!) Do not be afraid to admit you could be mistaken in some areas.  Growth is often painful but always good.

One caution: If you find yourself tempted to jettison some essential part of the Christian faith, at least be fair enough to give other believers the opportunity to answer your questions and respond to your new-found convictions. Never forget that doubt is egotistical; it feels it has found the fatal flaw in the Christian gospel, something no one else ever thought of.  It hasn’t.

Don’t be stupid. A young friend who dropped out of church for a non-Christian faith told me, “I didn’t call you because I didn’t think you had any answers.” He was dead wrong, but by the time we talked, he was so far locked into that ungodly system there was no reasoning with him.

6) Stay with a solid group of serious Christians.

If you’re on a college campus, find where they meet because they’re there. In our denomination, the Baptist Campus Ministries (BCM) can usually be depended on to provide a safe environment for meeting friends, discussing issues, and arguing concepts.If you’re traveling overseas, find out where Christians meet in the city where you will be staying and try to make contact with them before you arrive.  (Southern Baptists can get in touch with our International Mission Board in Richmond. www.imb.org.)

In the wild, when the lion is looking for dinner, it does not take on the whole herd, but seeks out the loner, the animal too old or too young, too feeble or too headstrong, to keep up. When he finds the straggler, he has his next meal.

Stay with the body of believers.

Remember that Christians come in all shapes and sizes, all shades of temperament and all kinds of convictions. So, some groups you find will not be nurturing and will discourage the kind of inquiring you will be doing.  Move along and find a better group. (How to find them? Ask around. Mostly ask the Holy Spirit.)

7) Live in the Word.

Read your Bible every day as though it were a letter to you from Heaven itself. It is.

Each time you open the Scriptures, breathe a prayer that the Lord will speak to you, will show you the way, and will give you a heart for God.

A favorite tactic of the enemy is to trick you into thinking you know the Bible, that it has nothing to say to people in our (ahem) advanced civilization, and that it’s boring.  Jesus said the devil is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44).

I like to remind church members of this tactic of the enemy and then I tell them, “You do not know the Bible. Your pastor does not know the Bible. I do not know the Bible.”  We know  a lot of it, but there is so much more. We have just touched the hem of the garment.

Keep reading the Bible every day of your life until you get to the point where you can say, “I have esteemed the words of thy mouth more than my necessary food” (Job 23:12) and “I have rejoiced in the way of Thy (Word), as much as in all riches” (Psalm 119:14).

Think of the Holy Bible as your single textbook for the course known as “Life.”  This book will be your friend and companion all the way home. Get to know it from beginning to end.  Become a serious student of the Word.  And remember that the goal is not just to know it, but to obey it. Our Lord said, “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (John 13:17).

The blessing comes from doing, not from knowing.

Remember to have fun in life. Laugh a lot.  If you know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, your center is solid and you are equipped for whatever life holds.  (See Colossians 2:9-10)

Stay faithful.

Thank you very much. And congratulations once again.”

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