On this day of your high school graduation, I would like to share some wisdom about navigating the rest of your life. You have each grown into fine women, demonstrating that you can and do make wise decisions. But even as the my days of influence over your life are waning, I hope you will take these words to heart.
Today at your commencement exercises you will be encouraged to leave behind the old and strike out on a new path into unknown territory. I will not be surprised if we hear someone say these very words: "Face the future without fear."
But the problem is that we don't really face the future. You may be moving into the future minute by minute, but you certainly can't see into it. There is much that is true about the Maori proverb:
"We walk backwards into the future, our eyes fixed on the past."
You are indeed walking backwards, and you are only able to see with certainty those things that have already happened. For the rest of your lives you will constantly be faced with those things that have happened in your past, both good and bad—the family who raised you, the teachers who instructed you, the pastors who prayed for you; as well as the mistakes you made, the accidents that you encountered, and the abuses that you suffered. All of those events and people create a complicated fabric of memories and relationships that cannot be changed. If you think those things can be left behind and forgotten by running away from your past, then it will only be more difficult on that day when it all finally catches up to you.
Consider this charge from the New Testament: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us." (Hebrews 12:1) On the surface, this verse looks like the standard graduation speech, urging us to leave behind our past and plunge ahead into the future. But consider the words that begin that verse: "we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses." The writer of Hebrews spends the previous chapter describing the saints of old—people like Abraham and Moses, along with David, Samuel, and the prophets. This means that even as you venture into the future you are accompanied by a host of those who lived before. There are generations of people who have gone before you, testifying to God’s saving work in history, who are cheering you on into the unknown. You can walk backwards into the future because they did. God was with them, and you can know that by looking back to see the evidence of their lives that God is with you, too.
Walk boldly into the future, girls. Just remember that you are walking backwards.
No comments:
Post a Comment