“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 re 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