Graduation in the Kingdom

Graduation in this world’s system is a big deal. High school students and collegians intensively prepare for and then celebrate their passage of graduation. It is the epitome of success. Cards are sent, gift certificates are given, and new opportunities await the graduate. Graduation in the Kingdom of God is a time of celebration too, but it can look like failure in its gloomiest form.

I woke up early this morning from a dream about graduation. In the dream, I remembered God telling me a week or so previous that I was about to graduate to the next level. I made a choice in the dream to honor God regardless of how it would appear to others. I chose not to fear people, but I did not realize the cost. By the end of the dream, it appeared that I would pay the price of being alone, misunderstood, and rejected for my choice. There would be no one to congratulate me, and I would have to walk through a time of the unknown.

There is a difference between the act of graduation and the ceremony of graduation. You can graduate without being honored for it. You can grow to the next level and not have an audience to cheer for you. The process of graduation for Jesus was being rejected by men and living as a man of sorrows. His final graduation found him exposed, brutalized, and dying a very painful death. What a dark hour!

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” – James 1:1-4 (NKJV)

Graduation in the Kingdom is often misunderstood. I have a couple of friends who are in the process of graduation. To many, it would appear that they are failures, but they are graduating! According to the dictionary, one of the early meanings of the word graduation was that of “refining of something to a certain degree”. The goal of the trials that God allows is that we would be perfected and completed. We are graduating into a place with God where we will trust him more, where we will love him with a more intentional devotion, and where we will fellowship with him in both his sufferings and his resurrection life.

During high school, my parents homeschooled me. We operated under a homeschool group that held quarterly meetings. In one particular meeting, they conducted a semi-formal graduation of students who had finished 12th grade. On this occasion, an 11th grader found out shortly before the meeting that she had enough credits to graduate earlier. It was a surprise graduation for her! There is an encouragement to be received: Do not give up. Your trials will not last forever. You will be refined, and you will graduate from your current place of adversity.

“Now to Him Who is able to keep you without stumbling or slipping or falling, and to present [you] unblemished (blameless and faultless) before the presence of His glory in triumphant joy and exultation [with unspeakable, ecstatic delight]—” - Jude 1:24 (AMP)

In spite of graduation celebration, there is the issue of disappointment. Perhaps, we expected to accomplish such and such before we thought of ourselves as graduates, but God is the one who decides when we are done with a trial. Maybe, we thought we would graduate with a particular group of people, but God is the Potter. He knows what he is trying to accomplish in us. We can trust him to be faithful to us in the trial, to bring us through to its end, and to perfect us according to his design.