With the new school year starting back up, your life can get pretty chaotic. You’re trying to juggle making new friends, possible relationships, school work, and organizations. Your priorities, often times, get shifted — especially for believers. Before college started, your relationship with God was amazing. You went to church, prayed often, and had many talks with God. But as the school year started back up, you feel like you’re losing touch with him. It’s okay. You’re not the only one who is going through this. A lot of Christian believers in college go through the same problem of trying to keep God number one at the top of their priorities list. You’re just trying to adjust to the factors that come with college life and get into the groove of things.
There are some ways that will help you get the relationship with God you had back or even better. Don’t just give up or ignore the fact that you’re losing your relationship with God. Try to get it back with the help of these tips.
Make it a plan to listen to gospel music every morning before you start your day.
Listening to gospel music every morning will put God on your mind before you go on about your day. It helps you ease into the day, remind you why you’re at college and what you are here to do. It gives you motivation for the day and puts you in a positive spirit. You could try putting together a playlist of all your favorite gospel songs. Upbeat, slow, thought-provoking songs and more.
Start a daily devotion that fits you and your time schedule.
The Bible App has multiple topics and situational devotions for you to read everyday. They come with scriptures, stories, and lessons to help you get through the day or something more specific that you’re dealing with. Some topics include dating, college, fear, confidence, grief, losing your faith, leadership, etc. Doing a devotion daily, or just whenever you can remember, gives you something to think about during the day that will motivate you.
Have a weekly deep prayer/ talk with God.
Before each week starts, try to have a deep conversation or prayer with God getting everything off your chest. All of your concerns and requests. People you wanna pray for, tests you have coming up, your health (mental, physical and emotional), focus throughout the week, procrastination, and anything else. Sometimes we forget to pray every night or morning, but having one deep prayer or talk helps you to get out everything you want God to help with.
Find a good online church you can watch every week for motivation.
Going to the chapel every Sunday may not be working for you. Traveling to a church every Sunday may be a hassle as well. Try going to church online. Plenty of churches go live every Sunday where you can watch the entire service at the same time the church starts. Your church at home might be online too. If you ever wanted to go to a church or hear a pastor, watch them online! You might find some churches that have multiple sermons to choose from that might apply to what you need that day.
Try to practice one good character trait a week.
Try applying what you learn at church or in your devotion in real life. Pick a different character trait you need to work on or wish to possess, and try to show that to others for a week. Kindness, attentiveness, dependency, loyalty, or friendliness. You might meet a new friend while trying out this new trait, or someone may see you acting kind (or whatever it is your practicing) and may wish to be friends with you.
Practice being a light to others.
If you can’t watch church, remember to do devotions and pray, you can always be a light to others on campus. Hold the door for someone, ask someone if they want to walk with you if you see them walking alone, help a friend struggling in class, compliment someone, etc. These little acts can really make someone’s day, and it could make others associate you with being kind.
Try finding some friends who are believers like you.
There are a lot of people on campus who share the same religion. You could probably find one in your residence hall or your class. Having friends who share the same religion as you might make it easier to keep your religion a priority. They might motivate you to go to church, pray, listen to gospel music, be nice, etc. When you’re going through a rough time, you’ll know they’ll be there for you and even pray if you need it.
With all these ways to practice keeping God first throughout your years in college, you won’t have to worry about losing your relationship with him ever again. Never feel like you can’t maintain it. You’re a college student. This is just part of you becoming an adult. As long as you know where your relationship is with God, that’s all that matters.