The Walk



This week all over the country High School students will take "the walk", they will take the step from students living at home to young men and women entering the world.  Some will head to college, others will start a career, and many will enter into the armed forces to serve.  The opportunities seem limitless when your 18 years old and the world is your oyster with endless possibilities.  Parents, like mother birds, watch their children leave the nest headed out into the unknown.  we celebrate their achievements and watch them at one of the first big mile markers of their lives.  My prayer as pastor is always that we have prepared them for this time.  That they are ready to face the world through the lens of scripture and that Christ will be their focus.  The desire from my standpoint is that we have taught them more then morals (do's and do nots), and shallow theology, but deep truths of scripture that lead and guide them out into the world.

Churches around the country will have worship services challenging students to live for Christ out in the world, to take years, hopefully years, of theological truths out with them.  Most popularly will be verses like: 1 Timothy 4:12 "Let no one despise your youth; instead you should be an example to the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.", Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; think about Him in ally our way's, and He will guide you on the right paths.", Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you...plans for your welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."  These verses speak to students living a christ-like life, trusting in Christ for their future not the world, and knowing that Christ has plans greater than their own.

An even greater desire from me is that if Deuteronomy 6:4-9 has been lived out in the home and at church.  Prayerfully these students will be ready to go out and face the world rightly.  Their faith in Christ will be more then head knowledge, but from a transformed heart.  My hope is that Romans 12:2 is understood rightly in the light of Christ; that students, though they will face opposition, have hearts that are conformed to the cross and not the ideologies of the world.  Above all I pray that they engage in a local church wherever they go.  That they get involved in the work of the ministry and grow with a body of believers wherever the LORD plants them in this world.  I know all too well the intrigue and draw of the world and I also know the heartache and pain the world leaves you with after the world is done with you and moves on.  Many students will find themselves challenged by the message of the world and their hearts will be confronted with crisis.  However if they leave prepared in Christ these crisis will only make them stronger in their walk with Christ; even if they stumble, and they may, they will not fall if Christ and cross is their focus.

Above all as these students leave I pray they remember they will always have a family in Christ here at FBC Seminole that they can lean upon.  We do not force them out into the world but lovingly let them go to grow in greater ways.  We watch them walk and lift them up in prayer daily.  We shed tears because we know that if indeed we have trained them up in the way they should go they will not depart from it (Prov 22:6).  It will be hard to watch them struggle at times, it may even be heartbreaking at times, but we too trust the LORD in their lives and if they are in Him then He will never leave them nor forsake them and assuredly He will never let them go (Heb 13:5 & Rom 8:38-39).

So students go boldly with Christ at your side.  Impact the world with the gospel.  Remember we will be here always to pray for you, support you, and continue to walk with you.  We will celebrate with you and we will hurt with you.  Parents we will cry with you as they walk.  We will pray for you as you take one of the biggest leaps of faith as a parent and let go.  We will long to hear about how your child is growing and also how we can pray for them each and every day.  Congratulations seniors and as you start they new chapter, as you take this walk "May the LORD bless and keep you, may His face shine upon you, and give you grace, may the LORD look with favor on you and give you peace." (Number 6:24-26)

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