You’ve heard it said a million times before: “You grow as a person in college.” This means something to every college student, but that sentence holds a little more weight when you’re a Christian. For me, I think your journey in your faith expands the most when you’re in college, not only figuring out who you are, but who God created you to be. And none of it comes easy.
Everyone makes assumptions when you tell them that o-you’re a Christian, assuming all Christians are hypocrites who force their beliefs down your throat. That assumption always made me cringe, wanting people to realize that I believe in Jesus because Jesus loves people- wanting people to realize that I am not here to judge them. If college has taught me anything, it’s that I can only tell people I’m a Christian if I’m willing to prove it. No, not by screaming Bible verses on street corners or forcing them to go to church with me, but by loving people even when I don’t want to.
I realized when I got to college that the world isn’t as small as I thought it was. With that, came the realization that everyone person in this world is loved by God, and I owe them respect as fellow creation. It would be easy to sit back on my pedestal and tell people how to live their lives, but I remember that Jesus intervened in the lives of people by caring for them, for showing them mercy, by giving them grace that they didn’t deserve.
I learned that faith takes initiative- that I needed to pour my heart into what I believe rather than just wait on God when I need something. God would only move if I did.
I learned that I can’t let those that are judgmental, greedy, and harsh become the face of my faith. Everyone interprets the Bible differently, and we have to come to terms with the fact that none of us are wrong and none of us are right. Because someone may see things from a different perspective than you, if they’re coming from a place of love, they should never be shamed.
Even the hard realization of the sad world around me shaped my faith more than I had expected. My comfort zone had shielded me from the poverty, from the violence, from anything other than the privilege and selfishness that I had been born into. My definition of ‘poor’ was not having enough money to get Chipotle, while children somewhere were crying out on the floor for a crumb of bread. I learned that the world needs me to make an impact on it –that I don’t get to die with whatever money I make, but someone in the world might die because I am greedy with it.
College is hard. Understanding God is hard. Life is hard. I learned that no matter how hard it gets, I have this faith to fall back, to remind me that there is always hope. College changes you: Christianity changes you, too.
