This time of year always reminds me of last day events, because everyone is saying, "This is our last Friday!" or "This is our last class!" Soon we all will be saying such things about our world, because soon our Savior will return to take us from this world to heaven. We will say things like, "This is our last day in this sinful world!" or "This is the last time I have to feel this pain!" Do you look forward to that day as much as I do? Do you look forward to it even more than you do the last day of school?
Often when we reach the last part of a journey, and actually arrive at our destination, there is a sense of disappointment. "The joy is in the journey" is a popular Christian sentiment these days, and I think it refers to this idea that the greatest happiness is rightly experienced on the way to a goal, much more than the actual accomplishment of the goal. Graduations are funny that way; you strive and study and work and anxiously await the day you are finished with school. But when it arrives, there are so many tears, and backward glances at cherished memories.
Just a thought for the graduates: Remember that last things for the Christian are never really the end. There is always something better after a goal is accomplished. After this journey, there is another. After this mountain peak is behind you, a whole new valley of growth and adventure spreads out before you. When we bid goodbye to this world, God will start our journey into eternal life with a grand tour of the galaxy, ending with the great reunion at the gates of New Jerusalem. Then He'll feast with us in the city to inaugurate a thousand years of questions and answers, getting to know Him and each other better. Then He'll lead us back to this planet, and start our life in the New Earth with the final judgment, and we get to watch Him re-make the world into the new Capitol of the Universe. And there will be lots more to do after all of this!
And for the rest of us, those who remain here as the graduates go on: Remember to take joy in this journey we are on. Make the best of the time we have together. We should have goals to strive for, mountain peaks to conquer; just don't forget to look around on the way for the friends who journey with us, and share the joy with them.
Jim Miles
6/3/96