Byron Donalds shows spiritual side in Southeastern University commencement speech

U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, who famously found Christ in a Cracker Barrel parking lot in his youth, demonstrated Friday that if politics doesn’t work out, he’s got a future perhaps in the pulpit.

Addressing graduating students at Southeastern University, the Naples Republican and candidate for Governor channeled his “youth leader days” and spoke frankly about his relationship with God, telling graduates to “make sure God is at the center” of their lives.

“There are so many in our lives, in our communities, people that we see who are lost. And one of the reasons they are lost is because God is not at the center. They are trying to make decisions using their own understanding, using their own logic. Trying to make sense of life, examining the lives of others,” Donalds said.

“But here’s the truth on the journey of life. You will make decisions that do not make sense to anybody else. Sometimes, you’ll have to make a decision that doesn’t make sense to the person who’s been cheering you on for the last minute or so. But when God is at the center of your life, when he is the one that is guiding your decisions, it does make sense even when it doesn’t make sense to you.”

He urged graduates to find a church quickly wherever they move and be “planted,” as he did when he found a spiritual home in Florida, where God’s voice called him beyond his previous limitations.

“Before my time being a youth leader with teenagers. I never spoke publicly. Never did. Naturally, I’m an introvert. Some of the professors on stage, they saw me in the back room, and I’m just kind of sitting at a table by myself, and I’m just thumbing through my phone. I like that. That’s my normal natural habitat, but God had different ideas,” he related.

Donalds eventually got to lead a service.

“And then week after week after week, while I was serving the Lord, he was building a confidence in me. where now I could just walk to the podium and talk in front of a bunch of strangers and tell the whole crowd to cheer, and they cheer. Pretty cool stuff, right? But this is what happens in the journey of life when you put God at the center. You have to trust him in these decisions. And that trust is without a safety net. You’re on a high wire, no net, trusting him. And I promise you, if you continue to trust him, he will see you through.”

Saying that he found a “Proverbs 31” wife, he argued that finding the right mate is necessary to spiritually flourish.

“Half the reason we have young men in this country who look aimless and don’t have purpose is because they haven’t made the decision that they need to find a woman, a helpmate to help guide them in life,” Donalds said.

He went on to tell people that spiritual grounding helps them deal with adversity and life’s inequities.

“In life, sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. But sometimes you fail forward. The only time you lose is when you quit. But even if the next step didn’t work out the way you thought it was gonna work out … God is using that for the next step he has for you. You just haven’t seen it yet.”