Aside from the obvious academic hurdles Christian students face in their college years, one of the greatest challenges is remaining in the faith.
So here are a few tips to help you stand firm in your most holy faith during a time where you will face many things that could knock you down.
- Standards, standards, standards.
This is especially true when it comes to study of the word. As a student, your academic life has to be scheduled well- classes, study time, sleep. How much more should your spiritual life be.
A good regime of early morning reading & prayer is greatly needed, and bible study and church attendance as well.
- Keeping Edifying Relationships
If standing firm in your faith is your desire, having the right people in your life is in order. No Christian can do this alone. As Ecclesiastes 4:12 states
Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
You’ll need to establish good relationships which will help your faith grow stronger, and put to end some that aren’t helping it. As the old adage goes, “Show me your friends and I’ll tell you who you are.”
- Fellowship
As Proverbs 27:17 states,
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.
This can’t be stressed enough, the christian walk is one meant to be done with others, never alone. Yes, your salvation is a personal thing and others can’t believe you, but your walk of sanctification was meant to be done in community. As the previously mentioned challenges will come your way, you need others to help you.
- Be united
Many students come to a whole new state, even countries when they attend college, so it’s too difficult to attend service at their home church. With technology, many can still remain united to that congregation, but uniting in person and actively growing with other believers is very important.
Beyond the group/organization on campus, you should have somewhere to go on sundays for worship service and active practice of faith. Look for a new place to call home, even if just during the semester.
- Guidance
Piggy backing off of number 2, engaging in some sort of mentorship with an older Christian is so valuable. Timothy had Paul, Mark had Peter. You need someone older, wiser and more experienced than you to help you navigate through the narrow path.
- Serving
There’s an old adage that says, idle hands are the devil’s playground. The lord even said in Matthew 12:43-45 that when Satan finds us “unoccupied”, he intensifies his attack trying to claim you even stronger.
Active service, putting your beliefs into practice provides perfect use of said hands so they don’t fall victim to temptation.
- Give time to quality leisure
Strongly connected to the last point, what we do in our down time matters. It’s popular to want to do something mindless after all of the hours of applying focus thought to your studies. So what does mindless “guilty pleasure ” mean? Social media and Technology.
These two things have a strong influence on people these days, and it’s not going away anytime soon. So, this isn’t asking you to do the unthinkable, cutting away from your phone and social media life- I know, that would be insane, right?
Both have been shown to make it harder to concentrate, which means your school work will suffer, and even worse, it will become harder to concentrate on God.
A solution to this is to intentionally fixate your time on better quality leisure, like books, or things that lean towards value and productivity. Schedule times of active praise also fits quite nicely. These are just a few examples. If we think deep enough, we could probably come up with even better quality fun.