Advice to graduates: Keep Christ in your hearts

Enjoy the journey. Follow your dreams. Reach for the impossible.

However well-meaning, the advice doled out to high school and college graduates this time of year is something to which I haven’t paid much attention. It all sounds so … familiar.

But this year, it’s different.

This year it’s my kid donning that silly silken robe. This year it’s my son heading off to college soon.

Like many dads, I blinked a few times and the little boy who loved mud and popsicles and BMX bikes turned into a fine young man.

It matters to me what advice he gets, because he’s smart enough to listen.

You know, all of us want to make a difference. Improving the world we live in is something that appeals to all of us.

I really believe God created us to make such a difference; He’s shaped us in unique ways for unique purposes. No two lives are alike. All have grand potential.

The Bible reminds us that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10 – NIV).

That’s a tall order, for sure, and an exciting one.

Here are a few thoughts that might just help us fill it:

•Let’s remember the difference between a career and a calling.

Most people change vocations at least twice, perhaps many more times. When I was my son’s age, I wore the hats of McDonald’s, then Godfather’s Pizza. Then I worked in a feed mill.

After college, I worked for many years as a reporter and editor. Now I’m a pastor.

Most people change vocations. But as Christians our calling never changes. Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, God has us there to show His love and compassion to others.

We’re there to stand for His truth. Wherever “there” is, we’re there to show the difference it makes to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

We make a difference by remembering the difference between our career and our calling. And there is no higher calling than to be God’s ambassadors.

•You know, I think grateful people also make a difference. In this day and age, the folks who have an attitude of gratitude, those who are thankful in all things, really stand out in a crowd.

Very frankly, the world already has enough people in it who are cynical, discontented and perpetually disappointed.

My generation is handing off to my son and daughter’s generation one of the worst economies in our nation’s history. I’m no economist, but it seems that the trouble took root because a lot of us never learned to be grateful for what we had. We’ve focused on what’s best for me, rather than what’s best for all of us.

Gratitude serves us well no matter what we’re doing.

•The Bible is right: we are God’s workmanship. We’re created to make a difference. But we cannot fulfill that calling on our own. We need the strength of another.

Consequently, the key to a life that really counts for something is to nurture our own relationship with Jesus Christ. Pray. Meditate on His word. Stay in fellowship with His people.

Christ in us makes the difference.

That’s my advice to graduates. Chase your calling, not just your career. Be grateful. Stay in love with Jesus.

And, perhaps years from now, a former classmate might innocently ask, “What do you do? What do you make?”

I pray you can say, at least in your own heart, “You know, I make a difference.

“Do you?”