“What’s your goal in life?”
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
You’ve all been asked some variation of those two questions time and time again. Whether you were 3 years old or 17, someone at some point has asked you one of these questions, especially over the last year as you complete your final year of high school.
So, what did you want to be when you grew up when you were 3? When you were 12? When you were 16?
There are some of you who have known what you wanted to be when you “grew up” from an early age, you set those goals and stuck with them all the way up until this point in your life.
There are some of you who have just figured out what exactly it is you want to do with your lives or what your major goal is.
And there are some of you who still have absolutely no idea what you are going to do now that you are “grown up.” What exactly it is you want to aspire to be.
What I do know, and what each one of you knows in the back of your heads, is that the past 13 years have prepared you for whatever it is you want to do with your life in the future.
For the last 13 years, you have written hundreds of papers, done thousands of math problems, read hundreds of books. In the upcoming year, you’re all probably going to think that the end is so close, or so far away, and you're all going to think about graduation, when it will finally be over. The day when you would achieve your first major goal.
But now, here you are, getting ready to go to your last first day of school. Ready to go to your last homecoming game. Your last school dance. And in a few months, you’ll receive your diploma and that moment that you’ve been waiting for, that you’ve been longing for, will finally be here. You will have managed to achieve that first major goal in your life thus far in just a few short months.
So now some of you sit through your calculus class, your art class, your writing class, antsy as ever to finally be done with 8-hour school days and receive that piece of paper that ends this chapter in your life, that signifies that you have reached the goal.
Before you’re “finally done”, I’d like to take a minute, or a few, to reflect on exactly how important your goals really are to you.
This year, as you close a chapter in your life and open a brand new one, as you put a checkmark next to this goal, as you do all the things you've done for the past three years for the last time, I’d like to leave you with a few things to put in the back of your mind as you go through this next stage of your life.
The first thing I’d like to share with you is a favorite quote of mine.
“Let me start with issuing you a challenge: Be better than you are. Set a goal that seems unattainable, and when you reach that goal, set another one even higher,” Herb Brooks.
Some of you are probably thinking right now, what the heck is she doing quoting a sports movie in an article like this? Well, when I think about goals, I will admit, I like to think about the kind that are in hockey, but that’s not the kind of goals that Herb Brooks was talking about, even though he was a hockey coach.
I’ve used the word goal quite a few times so far, so I thought I’d clarify what that word means.
According to dictionary.com, a goal is the result or achievement toward which effort is directed; or aimed.
Your goal this year is to complete high school and get your diploma, to get accepted into your choice college. In the coming years, you’ll all have different goals as you go your separate ways. As I said before, some of you may know what goals you wish to achieve, some of you don’t, and some of you who think you know what goals you wish to achieve just might change your minds as your life go on.
So what does the Bible say about goals?
Well, the first verse that comes to my mind when I hear the word goal is Philippians 3:14.
“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Whatever your plans may be over the next few years, whether it be to go through college and pursue higher education, or whether it is to go and pursue a job in your chosen career field, you have a goal.
Everyone has a different goal at different times in their lives and you all more than likely have multiple goals that you wish to achieve. You have “small” goals, like eating healthier or exercising more or maybe spending more time with your family. You also have “big” goals, what you aspire to be someday, what your dream job is.
Whatever those goals may be, Philippians 3:14 urges you to press on toward that goal that God has called you to achieve, to strive for.
I’ve known the verse Philippians 3:14 for a long time, it is one of my favorite verses, however, most of the time, the previous verses are not included when you see it on pictures or on Facebook.
After finding out what precedes this verse, I thought it was very fitting to share with you, the Class of 2017.
Philippians 3:12-14
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Class of 2017, these upcoming months are not the end, but the beginning of the rest of your lives.
I’d like to share with you another one of my favorite quotes, which happens to be from the late Herb Brooks once again.
“You cannot be common because the common man goes nowhere, you have to be uncommon.”
Herb Brooks was right, you can’t be common, the world is full of common men and women. You aren’t common, you see, you and I, you’re children of God and when you step out into this so called real world, we want people to know that
So, Class of 2017: Set goals, set unattainable goals. Set goals that make people look at you like you are absolutely crazy. And after you set that goal, never give up on that goal, strive for that goal that God has called you to. And above everything else, be uncommon, show people that you are not common, that you are a Child of God.
And above everything else, remember, that you and I, you can do all things through Christ who gives us strength.