How many graduation speeches over the last month involved a speaker ensuring a crowd of distracted listeners that they can be whatever they want to be, follow their passions and reach for the stars and so on and so forth? How many kindergarteners hear that they can be anything they want when they grow up, even president, if they’ll just believe in themselves?

All those kindergartners cannot serve as president, although we’ve had some presidents who act like kindergartners (you pick the president you’d like to reference here). We give lazy advice to young people stepping out into life—most of us simply cannot be whatever we want to be. I planned a professional baseball career as a kid, and I’m still waiting for the St. Louis Cardinals to call.

Paul’s advice to the church members in Rome runs counter to most graduation speeches: Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

Later Paul describes the church as a body, with each member possessing different gifts for use in serving the community. I must look hard and determine my role in that body. No matter how mundane, my gift counts as important. All of us contribute to the health of those around us.

Sober judgement—not necessarily a highly promoted value in our world of entertainment and fluff and social media mobs. But sober judgement takes you farther than any go get-em speech from a celebrity. Dig out the gifts the Lord created within you, and use those gifts to build a life way better than we all hoped for when sitting in those hard graduation chairs.

Romans 12 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by Emmanuel Offei