I recently sat in the bleachers of our local football stadium on a warm summer evening and watched with much pride as my twin son and daughter graduated from high school. It’s a bittersweet moment as I remember how much of a blank and innocent slate they were when they took that first bus ride to kindergarten, the 13 years of training and growth that culminated in that coveted diploma, and the nervous excitement that now builds throughout the summer as they anticipate the next four years of college and what lies beyond. As the graduation ceremony wore on, we listened to speaker after speaker recite the same textbook words that one comes to expect at such an event. Thankfully, the class valedictorian decided to walk the walk and actually take “the road less traveled” rather than just talk about it. He incorporated humor and wisdom into a well-crafted address that left the crowd smiling and relieved that our school system (students and administrators both) hadn’t completely fallen into a state of monotony and words without action or emotion. There was indeed a light of hope at the end of a long, dark tunnel filled with test scores, homework, mid-level bureaucracy, and teenage hormones.
High school graduation is a frozen moment in time when, after years of preparation, you are finally bursting to make your mark in the world, seek your fortune, claim your independence, enjoy life to the fullest, bypass the mistakes of the past, and firmly grasp your dreams. The last thing you want is for someone to shackle your zeal for life and to extinguish your passion for what it is you love to do. By lingering too long in the same place and in the same position, sometimes such tragedies of life can be self-inflicted. While we’re still young and not yet finally molded, our souls feel a need to move. There will be time to plant firm roots in good soil later in life. But when you are still a wide-eyed and eager novice with strength and health and untainted ideals, be mobile and experience all this world has to offer.
Jesus recognized this in His ministry. Once he graduated to the full realization of who He was and what He had to offer, He was in a state of perpetual motion. The same held true for His apostles once Jesus had ascended and they were finally free of their fears of persecution. For those of us who feel the call and the purpose of the Great Commission deep inside, it can be difficult to contain that desire within the same four walls week after week and year after year, or even in the same town, or even in the same form of ministry. It becomes undeniable that the message we are called to share with others is too big to be caged. Jesus and His followers were unable to effectively preach the Word of God in their own hometowns, but this didn’t prevent them from walking mile after mile to find other towns and villages where their words were welcome and their healing miracles were seen in purity and experienced humbly, unquestioned and appreciatively.
Where are you in life right now? Are you on the cusp of your own graduation? Do you need to rediscover life’s passion and rid yourself of the routine and mundane and see a return to excitement and discovery and wonder? If so, then take a step outside and know that He is with you always and will never allow you to falter. Dare to dream and risk yourself because none of us should fall victim to the expected and the repetitious. Move beyond life’s boundaries that others have set for you and see what God’s vision is for all of us. Our God is not a small, insignificant, average and humdrum deity. Not one to be imprisoned in the limited mind of humanity. Our God breathes stars and paints galaxies. He creates life and conquers death. He is not held captive by concepts like time and gravity. Our God moves and He is simultaneously raucous and loud, gentle and peaceful.
Daniel Bashta, an up-and-coming contemporary Christian artist, has written a song titled “Unlock My Roar.” In it he sings :
“The gates of Hell will tremble when love becomes the anthem that we sing. Sickness will be silenced when this all-consuming power fills our streets. I am the sound. I have the voice. I am the movement. Unlock my roar.”
May the halls from which you are graduating today, be filled with fond memories. May the new world into which you find yourself flung, be one of passion and blessings, both given and received. And may the Lord of all Creation grace you with pomp and circumstance to move yourself and others in amazing ways. Only He can provide the key that will truly unlock your roar.
