What Would You Tell Your Graduating Self?

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Well, it is commencing to be that season of graduation or commencement, right? And. Like, what an amazing thing. If you recall back to your own graduation, whether that was from high school, maybe you could remember when you graduated from elementary school or whatever. Kindergarten.

Kindergarten. Yeah. Preschool, all that. You know, there's a lot of graduations out there, but. In this season, right, a lot of people have a chance to give commencement addresses.

And I'm with, you know, Dr. Date the word commencement address himself, parsonry. But it's an amazing thing. Like, he wanted to talk about this. I thought, what would you, and I'm asking you this, so you'll call in live, by the way.

What would you tell your Graduating self, whether that was graduating from high school or graduating from college, if you could give yourself a commencement address now. Mm. What would you Tell yourself 866-348-7884, 866-348-7884. And I got to tell you that having been around Dr. Carson.

His life was radically changed on more than one occasion. Buy a graduation and One of those was James Dobson, came to speak at Liberty one year, right? Yes, he did. And. I picked him up and so At the airport, I have to bring in He he has a bag and it has a tennis trophy in it.

Some trophy with some tennis guy on it. I like, what is this? Anyway, he doesn't look like a tennis player. Yeah. At that point, but I found out that he used to play tennis back in Southern California, and he won this great.

Southern California Tournament. And he had the trophy there. And so he's giving a speech. I had to put it up by the podium. And all of a sudden as he's giving the speech and he's talking about what's important in life and stuff, he picks up this trophy.

and he begins to tell how one day he came home and his wife had taken his tr this trophy and had thrown it in the trash can. And he he's like, Shirley, how in the world could you do this? This is my trophy for winning this tournament And she looked at him and said, James, seriously? This is What's important to you now? And as only James Dobbs said, at that moment, he coined the phrase, life.

will trash Your trophies.

So you better know what you're playing for. And then he went on to give the, there's eternal rewards in heaven. That don't get thrown in the trash. But I never forgot that statement, Robbie. Life will trash your trophies.

I can see him right now in our big Vine Center speaking to the students. And I had no idea. He didn't give me any clues. He just said, please have this set up by the podium. And that graduation, I would think.

To this day, I would hope that every Liberty student that was there that day, that still rings because for a commencement speech, You really do want to be brief and to the point because everybody wants to be out of there. And they got other things they want to be doing. And so you want to say something that's memorable. And that to me was one of the most memorable moments I've ever had in a commencement. All right.

So maybe it's something you remember that you actually did hear at your commencement or maybe maybe you heard it from any graduation that you may have attended somebody else's. Like Dr. Carson, 866, the number to call in and share. Right? Eight six six three four eight 7884866348 7884.

I graduated from high school. I never graduated from college, as you know, Dr. Carson. Um So I graduated from high school in nineteen seventy three. Wow.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico. El Dorado High School. El Dorado. There's a movie by that name. Lots of them.

Anyway, you know, if I could go back, I would give myself. These two same pieces of advice that were the best two pieces of advice I ever got in my life. I didn't get them at a commencement address. But if I could have given myself them when I was 17 rather than now that when I finally got them. Was the first one came from Norman Vincent Peale when I read The Power of Positive Thinking.

the the set that came with it, he said And I don't remember a single thing about this book, or nothing else about the whole thing, other than I remember this. If you want to have the power of positive thinking, you need to get up an hour earlier every morning. and read the Bible. But before you do that, you need to pray. Because there's no way you're going to understand it without the help of the Holy Spirit.

Which I was not a Christian when I read that. It made no sense to me whatsoever.

However, I paid over $100 for that tape set in that book. And I thought, well, you know, I don't know. I've never read the book. I have no idea. But what the you know, and I'm I'm so I did it.

You started Genesis? I started in Genesis, just like where else would you find where you start? Oh my goodness. I came to Christ through that, but I also developed that habit of getting up an hour earlier or even earlier. And as you know, Psalm 1 came to life for me that.

Oh my goodness, it became the love of my life to get up an hour early and read the Bible.

So that's just one of the two things that I would tell my commencement self. Look. Just one piece of advice. If you just take this one. It will radically change everything in your life.

And the fruit that that piece of advice Now gave me. Oh, so how about you? If you could go back and give yourself a commencement address. Or, if you were given a chance to give a commencement address. What what A piece of advice was the best you ever got, or close.

You know, a simple message like life will trash your trophies or whatever that may be. I would, you know, there's a lot of people listening that believe me, they're commencing whether they understand it or not. We're commencing into the next generation every single day, and we need it. 866-348-7884. What would you say?

So, Doc, you've given a bunch of these addresses. I don't know about a bunch, but I have done some. You know I always try to bring people to make that Begin with the end in mind. Um Fear God and keep his commandments. Um I always tried to You gotta think that long term.

And Solomon in Ecclesiastes goes after all the wrong things. And the beauty of us having the book of Ecclesiastes and the Book of Proverbs is that we have a person who's been there, done that, tried it, and found out it failed miserably. And so after all these failures in the book of Ecclesiastes, He says, fear God and keep his commandments. And again, the arrangement of the Bible is interesting. If I was arranging the Bible, I would have Ecclesiastes before Proverbs, because then, after the book of Ecclesiastes, fear God, what's the first thing you get in Proverbs?

If you want wisdom, fear God. This is the beginning of wisdom.

So, um. And for me, a commencement ought to always be, again, you're now living a life. But what kind of life are you going to live? Because there's going to be an eternal life.

So fear God, keep His commandments. This is the whole of man. Don't make king-size mistakes. Don't make king-sized mistakes. Wow.

That's good. And Solomon did, did he not? You know, there's so many levels of of of how that breaks my heart. Yeah. Because his son Right?

You know, that's one thing. We have children, right? We don't want to see our children not enjoy, right, the fruit of a relationship with the Lord. And no doubt, his father's relationship You know, it had an effect on Rehoboth. Rehoboam?

Rehoboth. Reaboon. Reboom. Rebel.

Well, say it that way. All right.

What say you as you're commencing out there? Commence to call us 866-348-7884-866-34 TRUTH. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Uh It's commencement season here.

It Truth Talk Live, and as we're thinking about that whole idea of commencing, what might you? If you were doing your commencement address, what might you tell yourself, or what's something you heard one time? Or what's some wisdom that we all need? We certainly do need. We would love to have your call, 866-348-7884-866-348-7884.

We do have a couple of calls. We got Susan is in Ohio. Susan, you're on Truth Talk. Oh, my.

Okay. I've never done this before, but I couldn't resist this one. Thanks. I'm old. I'm in my 70s, okay?

So I graduated high school. I graduated high school in 1967. Good for you. All right.

Back when we used typewriters to learn to type. I know. I know. I remember that. And my typing teacher, I had, well, I had, there's so many stories in my life.

Everybody's got a story. But I had changed. High schools because of my parents' situation. Anyway, second high school went to typing teacher says. No sense in taking other secretarial classes because you'll never work in an office.

Your typing is too slow.

Okay. I was accurate, but I was slow. I at that time we had manual typewriters and it was forty words a minute, but I was accurate, okay?

So I dropped all the other classes I planned on. God had so much in store. I'll tell you, that's the one thing to tell students. God has so much in store for you, you don't know what it's going to be like. My job after high school, I worked in an office.

They were looking for somebody that was accurate. and not fast. They said speed comes with time. And back at that time, it was a small loan company, and everything. Uh they could use uh household items as collateral.

And everything had to be accurate. And you type we typed it carbon paper. There wasn't anything else. And so if you had an aman or range, for example, you had to type that up. And I was accurate.

So there you go, you know, and they always tested people way back then, and I was like. ti I mean, I was a terrible high school student because of my situation. I was like a D average. But when it came to all the casting that they did back then for employers, I was the top out of 100 girls that applied for the job.

So you never know what God has in store. You never know. Nothing lasts forever. This is too show passive. It looks bad.

And my parents were both, my father was married three times, my mother twice. I broke my father says, I broke the curse. the family curse on his side. I was married Until March of this year, I w my f my husband passed. I was married almost 57 years.

So happily, happily, praise God. I tell you, every day, there's miracles happen all around you.

So just hang in there. It's a very Susan. I can just say we can tell by the joy that's in your heart why you were able to break that curse. Why God came alongside of you? That's absolutely beautiful.

And I love the story about, you know, I was telling somebody the other day, I took calculator math in high school. And back then, there was no electric calculator. There were rows of numbers that like the first row was the single digit. Then there was another two zeros, three zeros, four zeros. You had to pull this handle.

Boom. And they called that a calculator. And I always laugh now when you think about, especially a manual typewriter that I can remember typing papers on. I mean, you had to slam them keys down. Oh yeah.

Especially if you had carbon paper. Yeah, and if you have a have your manager, your the president of the company looking over your shoulder, it's even worse, especially if you're a shy person and they like to click their false teeth, you know. I mean, so they can get really interesting. And then when I was in my thirties, I had become a homemaker for 13 years, and our cost of living changed big time in the seventies and eighties. People, you know, they don't know about the high interest rates of 18 and 21%.

And the cost of living during that time went up over 400%. And jobs were disappearing, factories were closing. My husband couldn't find a job. Anyway, make it a little shorter here. I ended up.

having to go back to school to prove I still knew how to answer a typewriter, answer a phone, excuse me, and use a typewriter and I'm nervous. And various things I could do in an office. By then you still needed a piece of paper, and my timing was such God watched over me again. Yeah. I ended up with another job.

That lasted me 28 years until I retired in 2014 due to my husband's stroke.

So it's just one of those things that. God's amazing. He's absolutely amazing because that job and the opportunities came along at a time I could help my family. God bless you.

Well, keep up the great work, Susan. God bless you.

I tell you, it's absolutely amazing. Yes, it is. Thank you for your call. It means so much to us. It really does.

God bless you.

Have a great, great afternoon and commencement. You have a blessed day. You too. Bye-bye. Thank you.

Thank you. Bye. All right.

How about you? 866-3487. I like what she said, right? God has got lots in store for you. Don't.

Don't let people get you down. We got Jamal. Is in Winston-Salem. Your calls 866-348-7884. What you got for us, Jamal?

Well, Mr. Dillmore and Dr. Carson, I'm so glad you guys gave me time to give a commencement speech address. I'm just so thankful for you all. I don't know what to say.

I'll try not to take two hours to give my speech. I hope that's okay. Is that all right? Yeah, go ahead and commence. Five B's, baby.

Five B's. Be brief, brother. Be brief.

Okay, all right. I'll condense my two hours into two minutes. I'll do it just for you guys.

So, what I would say to myself, because I don't really know if I would be allowed if I could address a whole stadium full of people. My father did, and he did a very good job. I was very impressed that, that gene unfortunately did not pass on to me, so I would address myself. And what I would say would be, You have to get into the word, whether it's online, through a Bob study, through church, through Truth Network. Mm-hmm.

Being in the Bible has dramatically changed my life. He can change other people's lives.

So I would start there and just live out your life through the way Jesus did, the way the apostles did. And I would toss in some other kind of colorful examples. But my main thing would be to Getting the word and live out the life that Jesus Christ lived. I love what he said, Doc. He used two of your B's.

Be in the Bible. Be in the Bible. And you know, Jamal, I gotta say, you know, that would be one of the very first things. I wish Um, somebody had really l you know, instilled in me the the idea because I would have not thought that. At all, but it literally, like you, like you know, all too well, and I'm not.

Dr. Date the word himself certainly knows that I mean, it's it's It's not just a book, it's a relationship. It has the ability to change, to bring about transformation. Math doesn't do that. Science doesn't do that.

But this book is alive. That's right. And we may have a listener right now that Jamal, to follow up on what you've said, I just saw someone posted this, and I love when people do this. Hey, here's a tip. Read the book of Proverbs.

You want to get started? I'm not sure where to start. Start with Proverbs. Don't start with Leviticus. Don't start with Job.

Start with Proverbs and read the chapter that matches the date of the month.

So today is the 28th. Read Proverbs 28.

So simple, but all of a sudden you're getting tremendous wisdom from God. All right, well, thank you, my friend. We got two B's. You got three left to go out there. 866-348-7884.

Commence to calling us. 866-34TRU. Uh You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Uh It is commencement time here on True Talk Live and. You know, almost every day we graduate in a way.

Yes. And every moment we have a chance to Give ourselves some wisdom or accept some wisdom from somebody. And so as we really enter into this season and we're thinking about these things, and I had a chance to go to an amazing high school graduation last week at Faith Christian School in Ramzur, North Carolina, one of our Seniors was graduating and I gotta tell you, like. Oh my goodness Did they put on a show? I was just trying.

And all that went on, all that the way that they honored their graduates and prepared them. But you know, what would you what would you say at a commencement address, what would you tell your You know, graduating teenage self, as the case may be, or What might you have heard? That's amazing wisdom. We got Mike. Is in Dayton, Ohio.

Some people call him Truth Talk Mike, but nonetheless, Mike, you are on Truth Talk. How are you doing, sir? Thank you for taking my call. I've talked to you before today, but that's okay. Um I would, you know, a lot of times the life feels like you're on fire.

You know, I mean, you're just trying to put out fires, you know. And then you you you know the And you stop drop and roll when you're on fire, you know. But. I I really learned this mostly, I would say, in the last year, maybe two. Um you know stop drop and pray.

Yes. You know, I it just Just stop what you're doing and stop trying to fix what's going on. And stop and say, Lord, help me here, you know? And it really does help. It helps you to calm down.

It helps you to have your spirit, mind. You get wisdom from God when you do that. It's just, you know, I just wish I would have learned that earlier in my life. I think I wouldn't have been so hot-headed. You know what I mean?

Well, you know what I just learned recently, and this may seem a bit nerdy for some, or maybe. Like Robber, you tend to Go crazy sometimes.

Well, I'm going to do that.

So Psalm 74. if you look carefully. It it's a description of what happened in Egypt. Um You know, Moses went before Pharaoh, etc., etc., and they went the way it's described is there's two different kinds of serpents. And in Hebrew, there's three different kinds of serpents.

There's the serpent in the garden that obviously affected all of us. And that particular serpent, you know, it starts with an uh the N sound, the fetch, you know, however you want to put that exactly. But there's another kind of serpent that's called a sea serpent. It's it's probably pronounced tannin, something like that. It definitely starts with a tau.

And it Is the one that Moses threw down to take on, right, the Pharaoh's. Other guys, his musicians, I mean magicians put down other serpents. And there's a third. It's called a Leviathan that you might be familiar with. And it's kind of amazing how God came up against chaos.

in a way. And you may have heard that, you know, you We're constantly in a battle against The disorder of the world. Like God has a world that's in order. And so what the Egyptians had done is created this amazing bunch of sea monsters. Which were these ten and these serpents, the kind that that Moses threw down that his serpent ate the other serpents as a picture to Pharaoh of what was going to happen to his worldview.

And then Right. In the 74th Psalm, it goes on to say that you broke the head of Leviathan and you fed him to other people.

Well Leviathan is an image of Pharaoh himself. Have you followed me so far, Mike? Yeah, some.

Okay. The world would like to convince you of all sorts of things, by the way. You know, the world thinks that it's, you know, you should dress a certain way. You need to, do you need to drive this kind of car? You need to keep up with the Joneses.

There's all sorts of things that the world's going to try to do. And it's like a sea monster, and it's attacking all of us constantly, whether we know it or not. But Leviathan That's a different kind of serpent. And that is Pharaoh. It i according to all the ancient Hebrew study you can do that you can find that there's a relationship between Leviathan and Pharaoh.

And the word Pharaoh in Hebrew, it can also the root of it is your neck. And the m the most difficult distance to travel in all the world is the difference between your head and your heart. It's down at that eighteen inch trip between your head and your heart.

Well, in the middle of that is your neck. And if you can imagine that thing choking out your thoughts and just hearing it going, let my people go. Yeah. And so The reason why we think our world is on fire constantly is that there's this restriction. Between what we think in our head and what our heart knows about God, and trying to get that distance.

Look at the 74 Psalm clearly, and it says, You broke the head of Leviathan. We can't break the head of Leviathan on our own. It takes God to break that head. And so we think we're going to take on these fires of just what you described, Mike. But we can't break the head of Lefippen.

Only God can. That's why you stop, drop, and pray. Right. Go to the one who has the ability. Right.

And so it just gives you a little more appreciation of the 74 Psalm. And nerd out a little bit on you. But I was just thinking about that today, Mike. And so when you brought it up, I was like. That is beyond Yeah.

helped me With what you and and I couldn't agree with you more because I know you well enough to know you do stop and pray when you're in these situations and so does Dr. Carson. And so we learned from Nehemiah as he was doing his battle. Right. He did that.

He stopped, dropped, and he prayed.

So I prayed.

So I prayed.

And one of the things I love, Mike, is we don't have to pray a lot. to have prayed a lot. Nehemiah said, strengthen my hands. That's all he needed to say. Peter.

Help, Lord. Wh why do you have to keep drowning when all you have to do is say help? Lord.

So you gave another commencement announcement, right? Yes. You don't have to pray a lot to pray a lot. I think Lot would have agreed with you. Just saying, Mike, I couldn't resist.

I agree. I agree. That's fun stuff. But stop dropping pray. Yeah.

Wouldn't it be great? To know how many hours have we spent, or how much struggle have we had trying to put out those fires? That's a great piece of advice, Mike. Thank you, my friend. You're welcome.

God bless you.

I appreciate it. 866, the number to call with your. Like You're speaking to your 18-year-old self or 24, depending on you graduating from high school, college. Maybe you're graduating from medical school. Eight six six three four eight.

7884, and so there you are, you've gone through all. All these years of education and now you've been through Clinicals, and you've been through your residency, and oh my goodness, all the things that a doctor like that has to go through in the journey. But none of that necessarily gives you a dime of wisdom.

So you went to a high school graduation the other night, a couple of weeks, maybe a week ago, and it was. Exhilarating. Is that what I'm getting? It's exciting, fun. It was, it was, and it probably wasn't 35 graduates.

Yes. Maybe 40, I don't know, but it was small. But it was two hours. of celebrating And you could the tears that came You know, just from the stories and the stuff the parents and the graduates did stuff for their parents and the thing, it just went, it was just really, really cool because you're a parent. And you know what it's like.

When your child graduates, and the t you know, it's like, oh man, this season's over.

So here's what I told all four of my children at their graduation. And here's what I would tell me now back at my graduation, as we've been thinking on this lot. Um Don't Let this be. the highlight of your life. Wow.

Because it seems like for some people, getting that high school diploma, getting that college diploma. I've arrived. No. Commencement is you are now being launched.

So don't let this be the highlight of your life. Um Liberty University now when it does its graduation does it at night with the h Massive fireworks at the end. I mean, everybody who goes there, like, this has been so incredible, but. Don't let this be the highlight of your life. Um I I think the highlight for me, Rob, Robbie, is going to be Uh When I do get to heaven and I'm worshiping before the Lord, and then he says, Well done, my good and faithful servant.

That to me is going to be the highlight. That's a different kind of commencement. And that's the best is still yet to come, right? That's right. That's right.

The best is yet to come. And so I I was thinking about, you know, I told you there were two pieces of advice. Yes, we've got one. And I gave you the one about getting up an hour early. The other best piece of advice I ever got in my life.

was And it has to do with Mike's advice as well. And it came from a pastor emeritus. And again, I wasn't a Christian when I heard this advice, but it hit me right in the heart in my truth detector. He said, You know, if God is really God. Mm-hmm.

Then he knows Everything you're fixing to tell him. He said, if God is really God, Uh You know, you have two ears. and one mouth do the math. When it comes to prayer. Mm.

To listen. And Again, I I That made Like Really? It hit me right there. Like, that makes perfect sense to me. Like, if God is God, he does know.

And what do you mean I can hear from God? Do you mean to tell me that I can literally hear from God? And of course. You know, John 10 would tell us, did his sheep hear his voice? And I don't know if you've ever heard the...

Um Uh the thing on the bummer lambs that I think your name was Shirley Anyway, she talked about these lambs that would be kicked away by their mother, and the shepherds would take them up. You know, because they weren't being cared for and they would hold them next to their chest and talk to them, and they would hear their heartbeat. But then when they went and called the sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep out in the field, the bummer lambs would be the first to come. because they knew the shepherd's voice, right? And Man, when you get that.

That's some sweet stuff. We'll be right back. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Yes, we I do love that music, I know memory. Yes, we are talking commencement today.

It's that season. It is that season. And I love what Dr. Carson said about, yeah, you are commencing on what the next thing will be. And as we enter into the season, what would you tell your graduating self?

Or what would you tell your young graduate? Or if you had a chance to give that address, or maybe you heard something one time that has stuck with you all these years that made an impact, you know. What is it? 866. That wisdom is so valuable.

who knows what life you might change, really, by sharing something today. 866-348-7884. 866-348-7884. And I think, Doc, you you have a very um You have another commencement story. It's kind of hard to hear.

But I think for a lot of pastors out there Here we go. all of us, to an extent. I think there's something we can learn from it.

Well, um but I better ask people to call first 866-348-7884. 866-348-7884. But go ahead, Doc.

Well, graduation for me took on a whole different component because of of something happening right after graduation. I graduated from seminary in 1989. And um Boy, we had a lot of things planned that day. And my mom came to the graduation. My dad, it was on a Monday.

He wasn't able to come because working at the Lynchburg Livestock Market, whose sale is every Monday at 1 o'clock.

Well, my mom worked at the stockyard also, but she came. to be there for my graduation from get my master's degree. And um During the service, Dr. W. A.

Crispal is bringing the challenge to change the world for Christ and be a champion for Christ, all those different things. But at the end, he he asked if we graduates would make a commitment to serve the Lord with all of our hearts. Stand to your feet. He always wanted to give an invitation where you had to take some kind of action, and so I stood to my feet. I'm going to serve the Lord.

Well then he asked unexpectedly. If the parents who are there would support their graduate as they went out to serve the Lord, would they stand to their feet?

Well, it just happened that day that my mom was sitting in front of me. She was at the front row. of the graduation setup. And so I'm looking forward and I can see her as she now stands up. And she's one of the few parents that are sitting at that level.

And so now she's able to turn around and she knew where I was. And so I see her, she sees me. And uh what a cool moment. Graduation went in. As we walked out, I hugged her.

She had to get back to work, and we had other activities that we were going to be a part of that day. And um that was Monday. Sunday morning I get a phone call and um it turns out that The last time I saw my mom alive was at that graduation where she stood up to say I support you as you serve the Lord. And Then we got to see her to say goodbye and hug. And then she went her way and I went my way.

but it was at that graduation last time And it just hit me of you just never know what a graduation is going to bring about. Because my mom on Mother's Day, 1989, graduated to heaven. And, um I'm so glad doctor Chris will. gave an invitation for parents to let their children know their child know. I support you.

And I'll never forget that. No. I'll never forget it. I can't even imagine that moment. You saw your mom.

She's looking at you and. a keepsake for eternity, right? Until you see her again. Um You know, when he told me that, it convicted me that You know, you're you. You're A lot of us are given opportunities to speak at different events, and God puts it on your heart to do stuff like that.

It's easy to back off, it is, it really is, it's easy to back off. Um, don't back off. Because you don't know what moment that God has for somebody that they'll be able to hang on to. I I think it's a Uh It keeps a beautiful moment. I'm so glad you shared that.

And so, what does that bring up in you? You know God brought something about at your graduation. 866-348-7884. I would love to hear, really. Love to hear.

866-348-7884. Well, you have something written down there, Doc. You've yet to spill the beans, and so I'm curious.

Well,. Uh you know Um On the aspect of be brief, brother, be brief, I'm not going to say the person who spoke at one of our baccalaureate services, but they spoke for an hour and 15 minutes. I don't remember a thing, okay? Except that he spoke for an hour and 35 minutes. I'm like, you got to be kidding me.

So I always said, because Winston Churchill said, never give up. Never give up. Never give up, and he went and sat down.

Now, there's different versions of that, but basically, he had to what's considered the shortest commencement dress ever. Never give up. All right, well I thought when it comes to a Christian school, If I could just give one word.

Now, they already know about being saved and all that, so. All right.

Graduates. Others And then go set ale. Because Life is totally different when you get up. And you think about others. Real joy is Jesus first.

Other second, yourself last. And uh We have 50, I've counted at least 56 different actions to take for others. And my father-in-law, at some early point in his Christianity, Made a decision that he was going to start living for others. And he went in, got a piece of wood, got it carved, and had the word others written on it, and hung it over. The door Where you go out, as so every morning as he went out of his house to head to work.

He had a sign right over that door that said others And um Today, I have one of those signs hanging over my door, and that's how he lived. And I always thought that's That's the way the Christian life is supposed to be. If Jesus is first, others will be next. You're not going to be trying to make something of yourself. You're trying to make something of others.

That's cool. Yeah, and so you know, you heard that. How about you? Maybe your father-in-law, maybe your father. Um had some wisdom or some saying that Highly impacted you again.

I think it's really a great. Um practice it's a great, you know, something to discipline to to to Really? drill down on what Was the best piece of advice I got in my life? Was two or three or four that somebody gave me that it made, I did, you know, I took them up on it, and it really. really changed my life.

I can assure you that Uh if you go to man camp. With the key to call off. He's got some stuff. Um that that really just it seems simple But if you do it, it will impact, it will bear much fruit. And of course, in order to do that, you've got to be somewhere close to Jesus because it says, you know, apart from me, you can do.

Nothing. Nothing. Well, when you think about what is the Christian life, It's to abide. In Jesus. And I like the fact that again, when I look at our dictionary, I'm going to find the word abide.

very close to the very top.

So how does a Christian life start? It starts by you learning to abide in Jesus. Apart from him, you can do nothing. And we've heard some great statements already made today here. Get in the word.

Get in the word. And then stop, drop, and pray. Uh, when these things are taking place, your life's going to start finding that order that it needs, and um. It doesn't mean your life's going to be free from pain or trials. or failures.

Uh I've thrown this out. I don't know if I do it at a commencement or not, but if it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly. And I just shocks the daylights other people because it shocked you because you've always said, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well. But if we have to have excellence. to do anything before we start We're never going to get started.

Look at all the failures that Edison had when it came to the light bulb. You're going to fail. And as you look back, I look back, I always go back to the Liberty University story. The people who came in seventy one There's nobody at Liberty right now that would have come in 1971. Oh my word, the sacrifices they made to be a part of that, and the places they lived in, the food they ate.

The it was just There's no way. but he got started. It was started poorly and then it kept building. And you look at your life. There's a Bible verse like, don't despise the day of Saul.

There it is. If I'm right, that's it. Don't despise the day of small things. That could be a great commencement. Hey, listen, folks, you got to get Robbie Dillmore to come speak at your graduation.

The Christian car guy, he's got a message: don't despise the day of small things.

Well, thank you all for listening. Thank you for your wisdom. And look forward to a whole lot more tomorrow with Nikita Koloff, the Russian Nightmare. We'll be here live.