10.5 weeks...
72 days...
23 hours...
11 minutes...
Until the day that I walk down the stage, diploma in hand, with a happy spirit and a joyful heart. Until the day that I am officially a high school graduate.
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Maybe not.
Life doesn't begin the day after graduation. Life is now. Yes, counting down to the final day is nonetheless an exciting thing, but in the midst of counting down and waiting for the big day to come, we miss out on the gift of the life we have now. We forget that high school will never come again. We forget that memories are the only remnants of our past, and without making the most of what we have in life now, those memories will never exist. We forget that God didn't call us to a life of going through the motions, but a life where we take every single day seriously, where we live knowing that every single second of our life is a gift and that our utmost priority over anything else should be taking advantage of the time He has given us and using it to love others.
I am not called to rush through high school and live a life of just getting by.
I am called to make the most of every opportunity and use this time that God has given me, despite how much I dislike high school, despite how busy schoolwork gets, to share His love, to make this world a better place...
to be the hands and feet of Christ.
I have nowhere near accomplished this, but the Lord pressed these thoughts against my heart recently and has invited me to take the challenge of slowing down over the next two months and taking the opportunity that He has laid before me in public school to truly be an example of Christ to others through the way that I love. He wants me to act in love, to talk in love, to think in love, to truly walk in His love.
By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another. John 13:35
The world will know that we are His disciples by our love. But if we sit back and let the busyness of today and the rush to move onto tomorrow push us to go through the motions and never take the opportunity that God has placed before us to love, then the world will never know!
And it's not just in high school. In my college classes, in the shopping trips, when I'm getting together with friends and when I'm at home with family or surfing online...
He has called me to love.
Will you take the challenge? Whether you're a soon-to-be graduate, a recent graduate, a many-moons-ago graduate, or a many-years-to-go graduate, He has not called me and you to go through the motions. He has called us to take the opportunities that He has given us, with the situations and places He has put in our lives, with the people He has surrounded us with.
He has called us to love. Will you join me?
And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to His commands. As you have heard from the beginning, His command is that you walk in love. 2 John 5-6
