Junior-Senior
Banquet – May 10, 2003
“Now It’s
YOUR Turn!”
Comments to the Seniors
It’s
been a stormy day hasn’t it!
From our tornado dash into the Krober room
early this morning, to our sloshing here across the river tonight, the
winds and the water have challenged us.
I thank you for inviting me to say a few words to you here. I know the major purpose tonight is for
you to celebrate a great accomplishment and to enjoy one another’s
company. So I will try not to abuse
the privilege of these few moments.
I’d
like to leave you with the thought tonight that “Now it’s Your
Turn.” In the summer of 1971,
the summer I graduated from college, I spent 6 weeks in Air Force training
camp at Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire. Most of the
time was spent on classroom instruction and physical training, but though
few of us would ever go on to be pilots it would not have been the Air
Force without some orientation flights.
So we enjoyed flights on everything from huge prop and jet powered
cargo planes to small scout planes.
But the best one ride was in a T-33 jet trainer; a small fast two seater The Air National Guard pilot
giving me the flight loved scaring the pants off these neophyte airforce recruits.
We climbed to 8000 feet, it seemed straight up. By now, over the Atlantic Ocean, he explained how the “stick”
worked. “Push it left and the
plane banks left. Push it right and the plane banks right. Pull it back and
it climbs, push it forward and it dives.” Easy!
The next thing I knew he pushed it left and held it. We corkscrewed through the sky at 400mph
while my eyeballs swirled in their sockets.
Then almost immediately he pulled it back hard and held it. We aimed for the sun, looped the loop and
left my rear end somewhere a few thousand feet behind (sic!). In my helmet I heard, “Now
it’s Your Turn!” Riiiiigghtttt!”
He was serious. I nudged the
stick left gingerly. He said,
“No push it hard!”…and jammed it into my left thigh. I held on and my eyeballs swirled
again. Then I drew the stick back
hard and we looped. “Now both
at the same time he said!”
Emboldened by his confidence and my extensive flying experience of
the previous 2 minutes, I pulled back hard, pushed left hard and wonder of
wonders, we looped and rolled all at once!” What a thrill…what a
wonder…what power! Then I got
sick!
To
you seniors, Greenville College class of 2003, many of you my good friends,
I’d like to say, “Now it’s Your Turn.” And that means two things I’d like
leave with you tonight. First, be sure to take the initiative.
In the words of that one you’ve heard me quote often, Oswald
Chambers, “We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what
God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save nor
sanctify ourselves—God does that. But God will not give us good
habits or character, and He will not force us to walk correctly before Him.
We have to do all that ourselves…..No one is born either naturally or
supernaturally with character; it must be developed. Nor are we born with habits—we have
to form godly habits…” We have tried over the past years to show
you examples, to demonstrate from our lives; often I am afraid quite
imperfectly. But now it’s your
turn. You must take the initiative,
make new beginnings, self-start yourself. When God speaks to your heart, be sure to
act on it immediately. Don’t hesitate, don’t reconsider so long you lose your
nerve, act! Make your decision to
follow Him an irrevocable one. No
half-hearted measures will do.
Nudging the “stick” of your life will not bring real
discipleship. The character and the
service you have heard me speak of so often do not arise without habits of
attitude and behavior. And those
attitudes do not come from half-hearted measures someone else does for
us….not even God Himself. Take
the initiative to form those habits in yourself. You’ve begun under direction
here. Now it’s your turn!
Second, don’t
forget that the real test of character is not in the flashy moments, but in
drudgery. As I have begun to
take flying lessons myself, I have quickly discovered that it is really all
about lengthy periods of boredom punctuated by brief moments of sheer
terror. Puttering along forever it
seems to Litchfield at 80mph, but then watching your life pass before your
eyes as you slip a crosswind onto runway 18 at Greenville International Airport. Taking your
turn in life only works as you have concentrated patiently and persistently
on forming good habits in the moments of drudgery, so that in those moments
of crisis you do what is needed by reflex.
As Chambers puts it, “The
greatest hindrance to our spiritual life is that we will only look for big
things to do. We all have those times when there are no flashes of light
and no apparent thrill to life, where we experience nothing but the daily
routine with its common everyday tasks. The routine of life is actually
God’s way of saving us between our times of great inspiration which
come from Him. Don’t always expect God to give you His thrilling
moments, but learn to live in those common times of the drudgery of life by
the power of God…. If I will do my duty, not for duty’s sake
but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very
point of my obedience all of the magnificent grace of God is mine through
the glorious atonement by the Cross of Christ.
I’d
like to leave you with a wonderful passage from 2 Peter. Like me with you tonight, Peter is not
sure how long he will have with the dear people to whom he writes. But his love and concern for them is
evident in his words. Please take
these words as from my heart and from Ellen’s heart, and from the
hearts of your teachers at Greenville College. (Reading
from the Message paraphrase)
2Grace and peace to you many times over as you deepen in
your experience with God and Jesus, our Master.
3Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been
miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the
One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! 4We
were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you--your
tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a
world corrupted by lust. 5So
don't lose a minute in building on what you've been given, complementing
your basic faith with good character,
spiritual understanding, 6alert discipline, passionate patience,
reverent wonder, 7warm friendliness, and generous love, each
dimension fitting into and developing the others. 8With these
qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your
feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience
of our Master Jesus. 9Without these qualities you can't see
what's right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped
off the books.
10So, friends, [Greenville Seniors] confirm God's invitation to you, his choice of you. Don't put it
off; do it now. Do this, and you'll have your life on a firm footing, 11the
streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master
and Savior, Jesus Christ.
12Because the stakes are so high, even though you're up-to-date
on all this truth and practice it inside and out, I'm not going to let up
for a minute in calling you to attention before it. 13This is
the post to which I've been assigned--keeping you alert with frequent
reminders--and I'm sticking to it as long as I live [you are on campus]. 14I know that I'm to die
soon;[that you will graduate soon] the Master has made that quite clear to me. 15And so I
am especially eager that you have all this down in black and white so that
after I die, [you leave] you'll have it for ready reference.16We
weren't, you know, just wishing on a star when we laid the facts out before
you regarding the powerful return of our Master, Jesus Christ. We were
there for the preview! We saw it with our own eyes:
Seniors, I want you to know
that like Peter, I too can stand before you testifying to the marvelous
grace of the risen Jesus who is my personal Savior and Lord. He walks with me and talks with and tells
me I am His own. I pray you will
know that same intimacy in your relationship with him. Now
it’s your Turn!
Dr. Jim Mannoia
Additional
Mannoia Texts
Last updated: May 11, 2003
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