There are plenty of obstacles on your path to success in college. Perhaps the most difficult is the fundamental question: “Why am I here?”
I hope your time at college teaches you how to live responsibly on your own and that your studies lead you to great success in the future, but there is something even more important at stake. I hope you find purpose during your time here.
Even as a person of faith, I realize that purpose is never easy to find. But as someone who is beginning to find a purpose for his own life, I hope to encourage you by sharing what I have personally experienced.
I came to U. Central Florida as an 18-year-old Christian student with the idea that I was on my way to becoming a doctor.
I wasn’t afraid of losing my faith, and I only begrudgingly accepted advice on “staying Christian in college” from my churched peers. I was expecting my faith to continue steadfast as always, unchanged by the lurking “liberal agenda” that my old man kept warning me about.
Fortunately for me, the idea that my faith could remain the same has completely fallen apart in a way that shed an incredible light on my purpose here.
I was never a great student, but I have always done well enough to succeed. Unfortunately, graduate schools aren’t particularly impressed by the students who do “well enough.”
The problem became that though I was not setting myself apart, I wasn’t disqualifying myself either. I’ve gone through three years of school in limbo, never doing poor enough to give up but not doing well enough to be particularly encouraged either.
To confuse the issue further, I fully realized that my situation was due to a strange apathy toward my academics. I suppose the challenging times in life are there to teach us some valuable lesson, and this one certainly did.
As any self-respecting — or perhaps God-fearing — Christian would, I brought this quandary before God in prayer, and His response was pretty typical of the time: nada.
In the ominous silence, I began to wonder if UCF was the right school or if medicine was the right field of study, and I slowly grew more desperate.
The defining moment of my college experience has been my reaction to this trial. I don’t know if faith is only born in times of crisis, or if trials simply reveal what you believed all along, but I felt this incredible call to be more involved and passionate about God.
In a strange way, God’s silence caused me to seek Him rather than reject Him. During this time, I began several different Bible studies and became more involved at my church. It was a slow process, but in the ensuing weeks and months, God went from the guy I called in a pinch to the one I find purpose and meaning in every day. It seems strange in this day and age to claim to have fellowship with the living God, but once you’ve experienced it, it’s impossible to let go.
I wanted to share this with you for two reasons.
Firstly, I hope the young generation of Christians represented at our school comes to embrace what college has to offer. I think we too often have the notion that college is something to be survived rather than something to be experienced. Just as our school would have you believe, UCF does stand for opportunity. College is the perfect opportunity to live out your faith and through it, discover who you are and why you’re here.
Secondly, I realize that this school is full of great people, many of whom are not Christians.
I don’t expect this brief appeal to change your beliefs about God or the Christian faith, but I do hope to encourage you to keep an open mind, an open heart and open eyes. Never quench the innate desire to seek out spiritual truth. God has a purpose for everyone here, and if you are open to it, I know He will share it with you.