It’s that time of the year again…

We’re getting ready to say good-bye to our students — some for the summer, others for the foreseeable future.

And you’ve likely noticed over the course of the spring term a shift in conversations with your graduating seniors towards more future-oriented topics.

If your seniors are like most — they are struggling to know what’s next. Some are fearful. Some are anxiety-riddled. And some are down right paralyzed.

Why?

Because there is a lot up in the air regarding “what’s next.”

They feel like they should have it all figured out by now.

Or if they have had a “plan” all along, they may be struggling because things are not happening according to script.

As I’ve talked with students who find themselves in this place, I often start with the simple (yet oft overlooked) call of God to love Him and others.

Most students know about this call — and love the romanticized notions of it — but struggle to know what it means (in concrete form) for their lives. And what they mean by this is that they can conceive of ways of actively loving God and others — but aren’t quite sure how that’s going to help them pay their bills.

And I get their concern — but I often make them sit with this primary sense of calling before we move on to anything else. I firmly believe that if they fail to grasp this call on their lives — and all that it embodies — then it won’t matter where they end up earning a pay check.

Eventually we do move on, and we consider together that popular quote:

“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
― Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC

I’ve found that students often struggle with this idea — because it evokes two seemingly contradictory emotions within.

On one hand they want to love the fact that their deep gladness matters. That they can use their gifts, talents, and passions to make a difference in the world.

But that’s often tempered by an overwhelming sense of selfishness — that somehow to be “happy” with our work, or doing something with our lives that brings us “great joy,” is somehow not doing what God would want. Translation = God does not want us to be happy.

I don’t think a student has ever come out and voiced such a thing — but their words often communicate this very message.

So we sit with this idea for a while — and together attempt to process all that God would want us to learn.

And for some, there comes more of a sense of hope — and even excitement — for the future.

But others still struggle.

So I’ve started to help them look for the fingerprints of God on their past four (or so) years on campus.

I ask them questions like:

What has been meaningful? Significant?

What has made you feel most fully alive? Who were you with? What were you doing?

When have you felt like you were making a difference? Where were you? What were you doing?

Where have you seen your gifts, talents, and passions blossom? What were you doing?

From where they stand, on the cusp of graduation, we begin to plot dots on the four-year overlay of their campus experience — and begin to look for noticeable patterns.

We attempt to understand the larger picture that God had been working on all along.

And then we attempt to discern — looking forward — what might be next.

But we’re not aiming in the dark. We’re not looking at everything as a viable possibility.

Instead, we’re working off the trajectory — the direction — that God has been working and moving in for the past several years.

Believing that God is not likely going to place a 90* turn in front of this student, we begin to imagine what God might have out in the future for this student — based on what He’s been up to in the past.

And it’s been amazing to see students come alive during this process — better recognizing God’s activity over the course of their college years — such that a direction, and even the discernible “next steps,” become much more obvious.

We won’t be able to figure it all out — no matter how long we work at it.

But hopefully your students will be encouraged by the obvious work of God in their past — and the direction it seems to be pointing them towards for their future.