Wednesday May 25, 2011

As I was thinking about today’s jlog, I began to ponder the past few days and the significant things I have had the opportunity to experience with my friends. The first experience involved a graduation party–not one but actually three parties of high schoolers graduating. The joy on their faces and the feeling of jumping another hurtle marked my mind as I began to think of another generation beginning to take their place in impacting our society for the future.

On Saturday night Carter and I went to a manhood ceremony where a young boy was being ushered into manhood by his parents and we as friends and family had the opportunity to affirm his gifts and abilities and encourage him to take his place as a young man in impacting his worlgenera new generation is rising up to form for tomorrow’s leaders.

On Monday night, I sat in the gym as my son walked up to the principle of Mountainside Middle School and receive his eighth grade promotion diploma. He is no longer in elementary school or in junior high, but he is now in high school. After the ceremony he came up and gave me a big hug and vanished to the gymnasium where they had a big party for the graduates. I came and picked him up after the party, but I realized that the new generation is moving to the forefront to take their place and lead this society.

Yesterday I got a phone call from my daughter telling me that she had a big surprise and wanted me to guess. After guessing a few things, she told me that she had passed her psychological licensing exam and was officially a psychologist. What joy filled my heart with the hearing of that accomplishment. She is part of the new generation that is taking their stand in leading our society.

These experiences have been so sweet to see my children and children of my friends accomplish their dreams of graduating from school and it was a privilege for me to be a part of their celebration. A generational change is in the process of taking place right before my very eyes and I have two choices for my self.

The first choice is to begin to sit back and allow this generation to continue to take more and more leadership and myself become stagnant and stop growing. That would be the easiest thing to do. Or I could continue to grow myself and not rest on wht I have done in the past which is the harder road to take, but one that I am reminded Paul took and encourages us to take, no matter where we are on this journey with Him. “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:13-14). Our children have a race to run but so do we.

On this journey God is calling each of us to run our own races and not sit back and allow our children to run their race and our race.