The Real Fruit of Graduation

To the grads of New Saint Andrews College from a fellow alum:

Graduation is worth celebrating. But let’s be clear about what graduation means. The fruit of graduation is not your cumulative GPA. It is not the final project that you spent the past year writing and formatting. It is not the accolades you received (or didn’t) during the ceremony. It is not the funny robes or hats or tassels or hoods or ropes or anything like that. It is not even the job you have now been prepared to step into.

No, the fruit of graduation, the fruit of your education, is not so easily seen in the moment. It is only really noticed years out, when you are nursing a sick child at 2am, or moving into your first house, or holding the hand of dying parent, or celebrating 10 years of faithful work at your job, or struggling with the pain of infertility, or welcoming your 6th child, or reading Narnia for the umpteenth time…

Throw yourself into building something glorious. Go to bed exhausted. Don’t squander the rich inheritance you have received, simply because you cannot yet see its full import.

The real fruit of your education is a life well lived, under the lordship of Christ, for His glory and the growth of His kingdom, as your small acts of faithful obedience shape the culture around you. I promise you, the lessons you think you learned in the classroom will transform into abilities and capacities you cannot possibly imagine at the ripe age of 22. So be ready, when you hit those milestone birthdays in the years ahead — 25, 30, 40, 50 — to look back and realize just how impactful your education actually was, not first and foremost in giving you specific skills to do such and such a job, but in forming you into a properly oriented human being.

Therefore, give thanks now, on behalf of your future self, and worship Christ, who has given you this gift. Throw yourself into building something glorious. Go to bed exhausted. Don’t squander the rich inheritance you have received, simply because you cannot yet see its full import. Your graduation is the ceremonial recognition of leaven that has been placed in your loaf. It will work itself through in surprising ways. So buckle up.

Omni cui multum datum est…