On average, a high school senior will have already lived approximately six thousand five hundred and seventy days when they graduate. And while some of those days might be more memorable or seem more significant than others, all six thousand five hundred and seventy days were necessary to get there, to the day, graduation day. And graduation day is today. It is the day where all past failures and feats culminate in a single moment. The ceremony nor the diploma can do justice to the fullness of vitality that has transpired over those six thousand five hundred and seventy days. Truly, it is a day for celebration, and caution. The celebratory element is self evident, but the caution is much more subtle and in that subtlety, urgently relevant to us.
The caution is simple: you have not arrived, for it is still today. And we must reframe today as not merely a fixed amount of measurable time, but as the ever present opportunity to respond to the Divine. So, in other words: keep moving forward while you can. The writer of Hebrews succinctly states this idea, “Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” (4:7 NASB). And this was a direct reference to what the psalmist wrote, “For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,” (Psalms 95:7-8 NASB). The exodus of Israel and the subsequent events in the wilderness are long gone. But it is still today.
We should happily celebrate every high school senior on their graduation day. And we should with even more zeal, cheer them on as they continue forward. The journey forward (or, The places you’ll go!), always starts with today. Today is a choice: to rejoice, to gather bread, to encounter agape, to get lower than your enemies, to boast only in Jesus—His cross, His death, and His ascension. Graduation day is a good day. However, each of us have something greater: today.
