Graduates, Seek God First

This June, educational leaders in many states canceled graduations. There were no walks across a stage. No cheers or cowbells. No congratulatory lines with hugs.

Although I don’t remember it, my mom tells a story of my preschool graduation. In my purple robe and hat, I asked, “Do I go to college now?”

I knew even then that graduation leads to better things, and I couldn’t imagine anything better than college.

There’s still something about graduation season that gets me excited. Possibilities (and spring) are in the air. Flowers bloom. Birds chirp. It’s just a happy time. The graduation season has always been my favorite.

Out of all my graduations, it was my graduation from grad school that stands out most strongly in my memory. I had a lengthy list of things to do: Submit my portfolio. Take my exams. Finish job projects and student teaching. Polish up my resume. Engage in mock and actual job interviews. GRADUATE! (And then, as a bonus, I planned to get married and move to a different state!)

A fellow graduate said to me, “You know, you have so much going on right now, between moving and getting married. You could just skip the graduation ceremony. That’s what I’m doing.”

Skip graduation! The idea hadn’t even occurred to me. I had worked hard for my degree. There was no way I was skipping the pomp and ceremony. My graduation was the culmination of years and years of study and discernment about what God was leading me to do with my life. There was no way I was going to skip it.

This year, many graduates had to forego the usual graduation celebrations because of the global pandemic’s interruption.

Graduates, Seek God First

A popular verse circulated during graduation season is the verse in Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you. . .”

When I graduated, like many shiny-faced graduates do, I accepted the verse of a bright future ahead: A husband. A job. A new home. Of course, God knew my plans, and my future looked incredible.

But that verse wasn’t written to people with bright futures.

The people of Judea were in bondage, literal and spiritual. After they did all the evil in God’s sight, God allowed their enemy, the Babylonians, to siege and capture Jerusalem.

The Babylonians carried the Judean king and 10,000 of the most skilled and influential people back to Babylon as captives (not to mention some of their greatest temple and palace treasures). According to 2 Kings 24:14, “only the poorest of the people were left.”

A false prophet named Hananiah reassured the people that God would rescue them soon. God would take them out of their turmoil.

However, the prophet Jeremiah had a different message. Yes, God would redeem them, but the redemption was distant. Seventy years would pass before they could return to their homes. They had broken God’s Law, and there were consequences. The sentence of seventy years meant no one in that generation would live to see their home again.

But there was hope! They would not be destroyed. Jeremiah encouraged them to live their lives: Settle in the foreign land. Seek God. Pray that their enemies would prosper so that they would prosper.

Jeremiah 29:10-14 says:

This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will keep me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” (NIV)

I’m not sure where these words meet you today, but they are the encouragement I need.

August is here. Unlike the graduation season of celebration or the summer breeze of relaxation, it feels like it’s time to get to work. What is that work?

For the captives in Babylon, amid their bleak circumstances, it was to build houses and plant gardens. To marry. To reestablish themselves, examine their lives, follow God, and trust that God would rescue them, if not immediately, then in the future.

And our work in this day and age? When I feel overwhelmed by today’s world crises, I think about Allison Byxbe’s practical advice to “do the next thing.” She writes, “I’m going to do the next thing, not by grit and self-sufficiency, but by tenderly leaning into Jesus and asking him, what’s the next thing I need to do?”

Jesus came to earth to save us from our captivity of sin, and he promised that he would gather the Christians from “all nations and places” when he comes again one day. Ultimately, our future is secure in the hope of eternity with Jesus. Until he comes again, we are to settle in and do the next thing he has for us.

No matter what our circumstances look like, we can find hope in our future eternity with Christ. As we look forward, may our first priority always be to seek God.

Ashley Shannon is a wife, mother, and self-appointed adventure curator. As a lifelong learner, she enjoys exploring the coastal South where she lives and painting her experience of motherhood with words.