On Life Changes - Graduation

Today begins my first post in a series dedicated to the many "big" life changes we often face as the days of life rapidly pass by us and how God has worked in me through the presence of many of these at one time.

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For many college graduation is an exciting, yet also a very scary time. Through many long hours of diligent, hard work (or lack there of), degrees are finally earned and we are able to advance into the real world where money can be made and lives can begin. However, for many this is also where the fear takes hold. For most of our lives, we have known the securities that our parents have provided and have hid under the proverbial blanket that is schooling. For many of us, school has played an huge role in our lives for over seventeen years of our twenty-some years of existence. However, despite these cliche moments that a college graduation often presents, most of the thoughts and feelings I have experienced, and what God has taught me in the process have nothing to do with them.

Entering my undergraduate years, I was certain of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. I had a plan, I was sticking to it and I was going to be successful. God however had a completely different plan set for my life and in the early moments of my collegiate career called me to a life that would be spent for Him and His gospel that He might gain sole glory for the days remaining for me on this earth. This calling set forth for me a different, yet still exciting path for me towards obtaining my degree that I may move on to theological training at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. So with a calling so sure and more school looming ahead in the future, what could God have possibly taught me in this transition and big moment in my life?

Public relations, my undergraduate area of study, was something that I had longed to pursue for a long time in my life. For a while, it was what I live and breathed. When God called me into ministry, I knew fully that I was made to do nothing else but serve Him in full-time ministry, yet I never really had to physically give up the career I had so longed to pursue until my graduation day. It was easy to talk and say that I was giving up everything I had always wanted. But until I graduated, I never really fully had to give it up. Graduating from my undergraduate studies caused me to relinquish everything I had always dreamed and wanted that I might be used by God for His name and renown.

During this time, many days were spent in darkness, despite being overjoyed for the time that is still to come and the journey that God has remaining for my life. I cried out to God several nights wondering why He had chosen me to do His work and why other people were chosen to fulfill His calling by doing the things they loved. It was in this time that two particular passages of Scripture gave me comfort and encouragement to press on in the calling God had made so apparent in my heart.

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. [Acts 20:24]

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. [Philippians 3:8-16]

These verses encouraged me greatly in giving up everything I had gained, my dreams and accolades, that I might obtain a prize far greater than any that this earth can offer. God's calling is greater than man's longing. God's Word remains faithful and it spurs us on to do the work of the Lord, knowing full well that our reward is not of this earth. My sinful heart may yearn for what this world offers, it may yearn for what I could have accomplished in the career I always wanted. However, I have been given the grace to know the worth which surpasses all of this world and that is knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. And even greater, I have been called to not account my life as precious or dear to myself, but to finish the course and the ministry which I received from Him. With His strength sustaining me, despite the great sorrow that filled my heart, I was able to say with hope as I walked across the stage to receive my degree:

forgetting what lies behind, and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.