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Go Deep: 6 Spiritual Things You Need to Learn in College

In my last article ("Get Smart: 7 Things You Need to Learn in College"), we discussed some of the more practical life skills that graduates need to master before jumping into the after-graduation, go-get-a-real-job world. And while that was a fine article and everything — it mentioned MacGyver, after all, which has always been my personal benchmark for great writing — by focusing only on pragmatism I think it missed a vital part of the college experience.

Dating? Nope. Drinking? Nah. I'm thinking about another of the big Ds on campus: Devotion. According to a much ballyhooed Barna study¹, more than three-fourths of your college friends maintain at least an outward commitment to Christianity. But when it comes to young adults who were active churchgoers as teenagers, three out of five of them are currently spiritually disengaged. They don't attend church. They don't read the Bible. They don't pray very often. Reading between the lines, we can assume that, somewhere between the end of high school and the beginning of adulthood, a bunch of your friends stop practicing their faith. And this stoppage happens in college.

College is a busy time. There is so much to do, and the newfound personal freedom of campus life often means that religious activities are the first “extraneous” things to be dropped. But decreasing these external activities in order to focus on your studies doesn't require you to stop growing internally.² The college years offer plenty of opportunities to deepen your Christian faith. Spirituality can and should be a big part of college life. Here, then, are the six spiritual lessons you can learn from your time as a university student:

1. Faith is a process. Let's say you want to become a doctor, so you major in pre-med. You then follow your undergrad years with medical school and an internship and years of training until, finally, you get the white coat and stethoscope. How annoying would it be for you to take your first class as a pre-med student and start asking people call you Dr. So-and-So?³ How ridiculous would it be for you to get all frustrated, two weeks into your second semester as an undergrad, because you still didn't fully grasp the physical mechanisms involved in the human somatosensory system?⁴ Learning a career doesn't happen overnight, and the same goes for deepening your faith. You're young. No one expects you to have everything figured out, or to have even kicked this sin thing. Following Jesus can be hard, and the process of doing so is a long one. Be patient.



Spiritual companionship is vital. It provides someone to pray with, someone to encourage you and hold you accountable, someone to let you know you're not the only one struggling with things.
2. You can't go it alone. Hopefully, you've found a group of friends to walk alongside you as you navigate the college experience, which can be a time of significant mental, physical and financial stress. College is a great social scene for a reason: No one wants to go through it solo. A life of faith is no different. There's a reason Jesus trekked through Galilee with a dozen good friends. There's a reason Paul took guys like Barnabas or Timothy with him on his missionary journeys. Spiritual companionship is vital. It provides someone to pray with, someone to encourage you and hold you accountable, someone to let you know you're not the only one struggling with things. If you're following Jesus on campus, get involved with a church or campus group and find someone else to join you in the journey.



3. Balance is healthy. Today's college students — yes, that would be you — are headed into the workforce highly skilled and highly motivated. But not all of those motivations involve work. More than previous generations, you've learned that a balanced life is essential to good mental health. Employers aren't so thrilled with this, since younger employees are much less willing these days to put in long hours or serious overtime.⁵ But I personally think a better life/work balance is a positive trend. Achieving spiritual balance is equally positive. How many Christians have you known for whom one thing — like evangelism or worship or service projects — seems to be the core of their spiritual life? We tend to get wrapped up in whatever specific little corners of the faith most attract us, forgetting that there's an entire world of Christian tradition that we've neglected. Just like you try to balance hours of studying with some exercise and social interaction, you also need to balance out your faith. There's more to following Jesus than just the dorm Bible study … or the spring break missions trip … or your late night arguments about theology.



4. It's good to study. Sure, there are a few brainiacs who might be able to skate through their four years without cracking open a textbook, but a) they're rare; and b) they're missing out on fantastic opportunities to learn. Whether it's reading, listening to a lecture, or working on a project, studying is what college is all about. Guess what? Just like you don't learn 19th century British literature without reading it, you don't deepen in your spiritual walk without opening the Bible. (Or listening to lectures. Or working on service projects.) Prayer and personal study are vital to the Christian experience, and if you expect to grow spiritually without doing a little homework, then you're missing out on one of the best ways God educates us. Of course, there are some who take the idea of study too far, and if this is you, please be aware that …



Know-it-alls don't just lose friends. They also lose opportunities to grow.
5. You're not as smart as you think. College is a place to grow intellectually, which means almost every class gives you chances to realize exactly how much you don't know. Nothing fosters humility like being faced with the limits of your experience and knowledge. But isn't that the point of going to school — to learn? And isn't it difficult to learn if you already believe you know everything? Then why do some of us Christians go around like we've totally cornered the meaning of certain passages, or that our take on controversial issues simply has to be the right one? When theologians have been arguing over these things for centuries, who are we to act like we've figured it all out? It's better to approach theology and faith like you'd approach advanced physics: with extreme humility. Know-it-alls don't just lose friends. They also lose opportunities to grow.



6. Actions are important. Knowledge is a good thing, but how useful is it if it never takes a practical form? How much would you respect a computer science prof who could quote the textbook front-to-back but never spent any time actually programming? This may be what James was getting at when he wrote “I will show you my faith by what I do.”⁶ It's great to believe in God, or to know a lot about the life of Christ. But how does that knowledge affect your lifestyle? Faith is best expressed not by what's in your brain, but by your actions. If you tell people you're a Christian but you don't show love to anyone, or you tear people down behind their backs, or you sleep around and break hearts … well, expect them to have doubts about how serious you are about following Jesus. True faith isn't just an interior thing. It shows up on the outside, too.

I ended the last article with a disclaimer — that there was a lot more to learn on-campus than just the few meager things I listed. I'll end this one the same way. These aren't the only six spiritual lessons to be gleaned from college life. For a follower of Jesus with open eyes and a few brain cells, there are things to be learned about God everywhere we look … whether it's in nature, in the people around us, or in that mind-numbingly dull Constitutional American Government class.⁷ You just have to look harder in some places, that's all.

C O F F E E  S H O P

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What spiritual lessons has God been teaching you lately?

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But the important thing is to look. Be aware. Take advantages of the opportunities life (or God) puts in front of you. It's pretty much a given that you'll grow intellectually at school this year. Make sure you grow spiritually, too.