Many people view college as a stage in life where one learns to know oneself better. Opportunities, experiences, and lessons abound here, both within and beyond the class environment. Nevertheless, beyond all the fun, there is always a sense of stress, pressure, confusion, and other emotional factors that many attending college are not fully ready for. As they navigate their studies, relationships, responsibilities, and future plans, many college students begin looking for something that will provide them with security, calm, and happiness. And sometimes they find it in God.
Faith is often viewed by young adults as more of a practice rather than a relationship until entering college. They attend church from a young age, hear about God and His promises, participate in different activities, but don’t realize how they are building a relationship with God in their hearts. Prayer might take place only during hard times, and spirituality is never an important aspect. However, once you start your college studies, everything changes.
College can become stressful because you need to deal with many things at once, including study and social life. In the hardest moments, loneliness, and self-doubt, people tend to turn to God in search of comfort and hope. Thus, something that was practiced out of habit becomes a true personal experience in faith.
Another major change that students go through involves the importance that prayer gains in their lives. From an emergency-based practice of praying, one now begins to engage in regular prayer. This means that praying will be part of your weekly routine in times of stress, and a constant source of comfort when emotions run high. Spending quality time talking to God may help you regain your calmness.
While faith may give one peace of mind, this does not mean that life becomes easy. Going to college is not easy, and you still have deadlines, obstacles, and frustrations. Faith is what changes how you cope with them all. With the assurance of God’s support, a student begins to approach problems and obstacles with more confidence and strength. They no longer feel alone in handling whatever problem arises in their path.
One more important lesson learned by many young people in their time at university is trusting God’s timing. With the pace of success today becoming increasingly rapid, waiting and taking things slowly may seem difficult and frustrating. However, through faith, many students discover that life is not always as planned out as one would like it to be and that God’s plans for us are always much better.
University years can turn out to be not only years of gaining knowledge and experience but also of growing closer to God and developing your own faith as well. University becomes a place where faith is put under trial, strengthened, and turned from mere theoretical concepts into something tangible and truly personal.
-Written by Endiyah turner, Chapter Writter
