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D e b b i e D a r t t
Next weekend my smart, strong, bright, talented, hilarious and beautiful daughter will graduate from college. This is not going to be a blog about change or how they grow up so fast. This is a blog of celebration. All ten thousand of us will be there in recognition of years of hard work and determination. Not everyone goes to college and not everyone graduates from college. So we want to take a day, sit on some uncomfortable stadium bleachers and watch our babies walk onto that football field in their black gown and flat cardboard hat and let them know how proud we are of them. The graduation ceremony and all of the pomp and circumstance that comes along with it is our way of saying “Wow, look at what you did!” And to send them off to do even greater things.
One of my favorite parts of scripture is the first couple of chapters in Joshua. It is the children of Israel’s graduation of sorts. In order to leave their wandering in the wilderness they had to cross the Jordan. This required stepping into the Jordan while it was at flood stage. The Jordan at flood stage isn’t exactly a trickling stream that you see in all of the Sunday School pictures. It is more like the pictures of flooding you see on the news where people are clinging to the top of their car waiting to be rescued. It was a lot of water and it was moving fast. Even so, the Priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant stepped into that rushing river and immediately the water stopped flowing so God’s people could cross into the Promised Land on dry ground. Before the river closed up behind them God told 12 of them to go back into the middle of that river bed and pick up a stone - not a little stone but a great big rock that they would carry out on their backs. These stones would be set one on top of the other and would be a memorial - a stone celebration - so when their children saw the rock pile they would wonder and ask “What happened here?” The people would forever remember and say “Here is where God delivered us, here is where God provided for us, here is where God protected us, here is where God saved us. Look what God has done.”
But God doesn’t just want a pile of rocks for people to point to as a demonstration of his greatness. In 2 Peter 2:5 it says “And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple.” Our lives are evidence of his greatness. We are living, breathing stones that celebrate Gods forgiveness, redemption, transformation and creativity. So as we celebrate graduations, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, baptisms, soccer championships or most improved awards, all of these milestones and accomplishments point to a creator who uses his people in his plan to bring glory to himself. We are living stones so when someone sees our lives they will ask “what happened here?” and we can say “Look what God has done.”
Debbie Dartt Ministries © 2016
- Debbie
"Look What God Has Done"