I hope to have some Cali pics soon, and I will post on my trip, which was wonderfully refreshing. In the meantime, this was my bulletin article for this past week. My youth group has 5 high school graduates this year, and I am going to miss them. Feel free to pass than on to any graduates you know.
Congratulations! You have done something of tremendous importance. You have finished what you started. You have shown that you can persevere and complete the task at hand. The learning has just begun. In the next few years, you will change and grow. You will gain a stronger sense of who you are; your talents and gifts, likes and dislikes, and they will change some over the next few years. As you graduate and move on to the next stage of your life, here are some crucial things to learn and remember.
First, avoid the big distractions that keep you from your task. First distraction: partying. Drugs, alcohol, and promiscuity have derailed more potential than perhaps anything else. It is not worth giving up your faith, dreams, health, and self-worth for a few minutes of fun and euphoria. It will have a lasting effect. I haven’t ever heard anyone say, “I wish I partied more while I was in school.” I have heard many say they wish they had not. Second distraction: misplacing priorities. School will demand much of your time, and it should, but do not ever let it get in the way of your faith. Keep the Lord and His church a priority. I have seen too many that have put Christ on the back-burner for the sake of getting the grade, career, girl, guy, fraternity, sorority, etc. never to return, and then struggle wondering what life is all about anyway. He must be over all and in all. Without Him, none of it amounts to anything whatsoever no matter what the American dream might say. Your faith will be stretched, challenged, questioned, ridiculed, etc. This has the potential to grow your faith deep or destroy it. I hope your faith is challenged and stretched because that is how it grows, as long as you have some encouragement and mentoring along the way. It is essential to be an active part of the Lord’s body. If your faith is always challenged and never watered, it will shrivel up like a plant. Hold on for dear life and trust the Lord through the ride. Third distraction: Stupid parents (I have your attention now, don’t I?). Mark Twain once remarked that when he was 18, his dad was the stupidest man alive. In his mid-twenties, he was amazed at how much his dad had learned. Do yourself a favor, and start paying attention to your parent’s advice now. Let me put it this way, how many of you know less now than you did when you were 7? Has not your understanding of life increased since then? So why do teenagers believe that a 40 something will know less than a teenager? If you believe that your parents don’t understand, maybe it’s because they have learned that what they understood at 20 isn’t even worth remembering compared to the wisdom they have now. Swallow your pride and trust that maybe your parents do know something about life. After all, they were able to be there for you and encourage you to get to this point. Yes, your parents don't know everything, but they know a whole lot more than you do. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking your parents don’t know anything. Blog note-Regarding the stupid parents part, there are some unfortunate exceptions. I have known a few kids who had more wisdom and faith then their parents. Thankfully, that does not apply to any parents of my graduates.
Some of you may know what you want to do and some may not. It is likely this will change. That’s fine. It’s all part of learning and growing, discovering likes and dislikes. Here are my three principles of finding a good career (these ideas came out of my study of Ecclesiastes). 1) Make sure your career glorifies God. The question is not are you going to be doctor or lawyer or counselor, but what kind of doctor or lawyer or counselor are you going to be? If what you are doing is not glorifying God, do something else. Period. 2) Make sure you earn enough to take care of your responsibilities. If you love what you do, but you can’t make enough money to provide for your family, then you need to do something else until you can. Or more likely, you may need to simplify. You need to provide shelter and transportation, but that doesn’t mean you need a 20 bedroom house and a Hummer. Make sure you can take care of your family within your means. 3) Find something you enjoy. There is nothing so miserable as having to go to a job that you can’t stand. The best jobs are the ones that hardly feel like work, because you love what you do. (Just to clarify, no matter what job you have, there WILL be something about it you don’t like. There are no perfect jobs.) If you keep these three principles in this order, you will be doing well, whether that’s digging ditches or being CEO of a company. It doesn’t work if your reverse the order. And remember, there is no honest job that is beneath your dignity.
My last piece of advice is learn from mistakes. You will make them. Get up, learn, and keep going. Be sure to learn from other mistakes as well. The best lessons are the ones you don’t have to suffer through, besides you’ll make enough of your own mistakes anyway. Don’t insist on only learning through your own experience. For more on how to do this well, refer to the part about parents.
I am proud of all of our graduates. May you continue to be a blessing to others as you have been to me. May you grow mightily in wisdom and faith. May you be an encourager and example to others. May you live your life to the glory of God. “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face to shine upon you; the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26).
Posted while listening to Sufjan Stevens sing "Come On! Feel the Illinoise: Pt. 1-The World's Columbian Exposition/Pt.2-Carl Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream" on his Illinois album (rated at 9 1/2 canaries)
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3 comments:
one of my biggest and best pieces of advice for high school grads of my youth groups past is:
SKIP CLASS. when you get to college, take breaks. skip a class here and there. don't go to every single class and get all stressed out over every single little thing the prof throws at you.
now, don't skip a LOT of classes, but skip a couple each semester. relax. take your time. sleep in. get together with a friend, skip together, go into town or somewhere and find something you've never seen before.
and this always comes with an offer of $20 to go and spend on the class-skipping day. as of now, i've actually sent about $80 out to students who really take me up on it. one of my students actually took pictures with her friend on their class-skipping adventure, put a booklet together, and sent it to me as a Thank-you for sending the money.
hee hee.
That falls right in line with priorities. Sometimes we just need a fun stressless day, or quiet time in prayer, or a good talk with a friend. People need to always come before stuff. But only skip because you have something more important to do for your spiritual and emotional health.
One of my favorite skipping class memories: one morning I actually got up early enough to eat breakfast, so I went to the cafeteria, and sat with some friends (Mike and Beth Dougherty-sp?) I hadn't talked to in awhile. As it neared time for class, we decided I should skip. They both had had the same professor, so they wrote me an excuse. I visited for awhile longer and then walked into class with 5 minutes left and gave my excuse to the professor (Dr. Childers). Everyone laughed when I walked in, and Dr. Childers had a good laugh from the note. I remember that moment, but I don't remember any Greek. So the skip was totally worth it.
I wish I was a better friend and read your blog more often. We were just in CA also. We had a mostly paid for vacation to Lake Tahoe and we drove to Yosemite from there. Breathtaking, no? We didn't get there until the 13th, so we would have missed you anyway, but you know it would have been nice to know that we were following in the recent footsteps of the canary.
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