How do I maintain my spiritual life and my student life in a healthy balance?
This topic is becoming
more and more popular. It’s already hard to have a school life and a social
life and when we add God into the mix, we assume it’s overwhelming and
overbearing. That shouldn’t be the way we see it though. When people ask me
where I am, it’s either one of four places: school, work, home or church. And
for most of us that’s the case. We have responsibilities associated to all of
these elements of our life, and I admit they can get it hard to manage all at once. The truth though is, we
cannot afford to subtract God from the equation. I’d rather lose
school, work and the home than lose God. And I’ll tell you why.
Have you ever tried going a week without speaking with God?
Not even a week, how about a day or
two? You start feeling his absence after a while right? And the funny thing is,
you think about it every minute. You tell yourself “oh man, I didn’t read the
bible today” or “I didn’t pray before leaving the house”. Even as you go to bed
and think about your entire day, don’t you think about God too? I know I do,
then I start feeling it. That disconnect from God. When you acknowledge that
God is absent from your life, even though it’s only been for 24 hours, you
start seeing the consequences. You feel a little more stressed than usual, and
you say things you shouldn’t. You know? That swear word that comes out from
your mouth, out of nowhere? Yea that’s the kind of disconnect I’m
talking about. And the worst is, when you start sinning, the enemy gets
in your head and even though you know you should repent for offending God, you
don’t so you avoid him altogether. So there it is! The cycle begins!
You flop on church because “who really has time to come to the Wednesday service” right? Or you don’t want to reach that prayer meeting on Friday because, man you “studied so hard all day you’re too tired”, you’ll just “see God on Sunday”. Or even the “I can’t come to the ministry meeting because I have to study” excuse. But really it’s because you’d rather go home and catch up on your show. At this point you don’t even know where you last placed your bible… you come to church but you don’t “feel it”. The word was ‘hot’ but you didn’t “feel it”. We’ve all been through this haven’t we? Then what’s next? You have midterms coming up, you start panicking, stressing and doing all-nighters thinking that’s going to help and the day of the midterm, during that last hour, you turn to God. You know God… the one who’s BEEN there, you turn to him and ask him to help you and to support you. Actually you don’t even ask you beg him for him to have mercy on you!
One thing to remember
is, life doesn’t work like that. God is merciful yes, but it does not mean you
must ignore him when things are ‘aight’ and come back running when it’s extreme
panic mode. God does not answer our panics! He answers our faith! So really the only way to
balance your school life and your church life is to stay connected to God.
It seems simple and easy to do,
but you’ll see, sometimes you won’t even realize what missing a day of devotion
can do to you until you’ve missed a day of devotion. Stay on the tracks. And
when it gets tough, ask God to help you
and to carry the burden for you.
Matthew 11:28-30
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
by: Vicky (Vessel
Speaker)
