Difficulty is True Self-Care: 2025 Commencement Speech

By Matt Hannan, Faculty

"In the continued spirit of countercultural messaging, I have been examining what most of your peers are hearing in their commencements lately. I have looked at the data and crunched the numbers. It turns out that what the world thinks young people need is a greater focus on themselves. Brilliant!

That's been working great for your peers, hasn't it? A case could be made that Americans have never been more fragile, more offended, and more selfish. As a result, depression, anxiety, and aimlessness are rampant. Self-medicating with Netflix, we slowly grind away our lives, hoping one day to reach retirement, where we can dedicate ourselves more fully to Netflix. In a culture that obsesses over personality tests, horoscopes, “self-care”, and “learning to trust ourselves”, following Jesus Christ is relegated to an increasingly small portion of our cultural conscience. And if we were honest with ourselves, in many ways we Christians have not done a great job of differentiating ourselves from this self and inward-focused living. 

By way of sharp contrast, I want to call to your imaginations the Apostles and the Early Church. They considered trials and persecutions to be a joy. Not because they enjoyed suffering, but because they saw beyond it. Affluent cultures produce weaklings, and they did not want to remain weak but to grow in spiritual strength. So they welcomed the trials, trusting that God knew what was best for their growth. They held their heads high as they were persecuted, slandered, and even killed for the name of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is also with us, so what has changed?

This brings us to the challenge for you this evening: the beauty of difficulty. God wants better for you, so He makes life difficult. He puts you through the fire to purify you, and to deliver you from too much love of this world. This is how Christ overcame the world, and it is the narrow road of all who will follow Him.

Was Brother Andrew better or worse off for his poverty or his difficulties in Communist Russia? What did Faithful really lose in Vanity Faire for his bold witness against their wares? Was Eric Liddell’s true calling harmed by upholding the Lord’s Day rather than running the 100 meter? These examples make little sense to the world, but they are inspiring to us who want to be bolder than we are. In our mind’s eye, we can see the gleaming knight that we want to be, while knowing we are barely squires, clumsy with the sword and armor of God. 

There are no montages that will get you from weakling to warrior, friends. There is only this life as a training ground for the soul. You must wake each morning looking at the difficulties in the face for what they are: blessings to make you more like Christ. Jonathan Edwards began as a boy resolved to follow Jesus no matter what. Decades of hard work prepared him for his powerful ministry. It is the same with you, brothers and sisters. Make a bold declaration to seek Christ’s perfection, to kill temptation to the point of shedding blood, to always give a reason for the hope that is within you. To overcome the world at all costs.

And haven't you been learning this already -- albeit in fits and starts? Your devotion and prayer life began as nothing. Is it not greater now? Your theology was largely ignorance and now is maturing. You were more selfish and lazy and are now more apt to selflessly serve at personal expense. You have journeyed around the country and world for the sake of the gospel. And you have learned diligence in the classroom, determination on the court, and boldness on the stage. My challenge is nothing new to you. I simply hope to frame it in a new light. You are not graduating into lives of ease, but as young adults prepared to impact the world, to scale the walls of difficulty that God puts in your path.

Life is hard. The Christian life is even harder. So what? Do you want to go back to Netflix, or do you want to fight? Gird up your loins, little soldiers. You are being called up to the front lines. You are being trained for war, not to sit on the sidelines, too afraid to act. Not like Saul, hiding behind others, but like David, trusting in the strength of the Lord. Will you let the blasphemers and mockers cow a son or daughter of God? Fear God, not men.

As we have been living in Hebrews this year together, I want to leave you with a few verses from chapter 12: Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed."