Right now across this country graduations are happening as children, teens, and adults complete their schooling. From the smallest tykes with their construction paper caps to adults with their elaborate robes, these students have worked for a specific goal and now with their completion, a ceremony honoring their achievements. Some students will be recognized with special rewards such as academic excellence, class recognition, or class superlatives. Many will never again cross a stage to be recognized as they have reached the goals they have set for themselves. Others will not be satisfied and seek higher goals and will be committed to the task until it is completed. Nola Ochs will become the oldest person to graduate from college at 95 years of age and has earned her degree from Fort Hays State University in Kansas. Ochs told reporters, "That yearning for study was still there. I came here with no thought of it being an unusual thing at all. It gave me a feeling of satisfaction. I like to study and learn." Her pursuit of a degree started in 1972 (two years before I graduated high school) taking a class at a time.Her granddaughter Alexandra, is also attending the university and will graduate with her this spring. With her latest accomplishment, Ochs will break the Guinness Book’s record for oldest person to graduate college, besting the previous record held by Mozelle Richardson, who received her journalism degree from the University of Oklahoma in 2004 when she was 90.(Buzzle.com)
While we think of the word graduation only as a ceremony, it actually began five centuries ago in the field of alchemy. It meant the refining of something to a certain degree or dividing into specific degrees. It wasn't until the 1600's the idea of education was attached to the word. Along with its root word, graduate, its refers to a cylindrical or tapered graduated container for measuring something. In Proverb 27:21 the writer compares the crucible and a furnace to the praises a man receives and what that person does with those praises. The refining process of precious metals happens as high heat breaks down the various elements in the ore and the lighter imperfections come to the surface to be poured off. As a believer walks in the foundry of God, he is being purified for the pure and precious metal which remains after the dross is removed is of great value.
Ego can be a terrible and terrifying master. It holds some to a need for more and more praises and others feel shame when their opinions are challenged by someone. Ego brings about destruction of others to lift up one's self. It demands more and more at other's expense and destroys families by the demands of selfish pleasure reaping its own reward regardless of the consequences. All for the need to be praised. My prayer is this: "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Galatians 6:14 No matter how many graduations (ceremonies) I have earned or the things I have done, let me boast about Jesus Christ and the flame of his furnace as he makes me a better person each and every day.
While we think of the word graduation only as a ceremony, it actually began five centuries ago in the field of alchemy. It meant the refining of something to a certain degree or dividing into specific degrees. It wasn't until the 1600's the idea of education was attached to the word. Along with its root word, graduate, its refers to a cylindrical or tapered graduated container for measuring something. In Proverb 27:21 the writer compares the crucible and a furnace to the praises a man receives and what that person does with those praises. The refining process of precious metals happens as high heat breaks down the various elements in the ore and the lighter imperfections come to the surface to be poured off. As a believer walks in the foundry of God, he is being purified for the pure and precious metal which remains after the dross is removed is of great value.
Ego can be a terrible and terrifying master. It holds some to a need for more and more praises and others feel shame when their opinions are challenged by someone. Ego brings about destruction of others to lift up one's self. It demands more and more at other's expense and destroys families by the demands of selfish pleasure reaping its own reward regardless of the consequences. All for the need to be praised. My prayer is this: "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Galatians 6:14 No matter how many graduations (ceremonies) I have earned or the things I have done, let me boast about Jesus Christ and the flame of his furnace as he makes me a better person each and every day.
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