As my fourth year of college is coming to a close, I sit back and remember who I was and what I was like in my first year, and even during my years in high school. Considering I was only a Christian for maybe two years before I went to college, this is a big thing to ponder. I was still learning how to pray, how to seek God, who God was, and what it truly means to be a Christian. All I knew entering college was that I wanted to stick as close to Christ as possible.
Hearing stories about the wild parties and extremely secular people at my school, I was a bit anxious to begin. Thinking that I would be the only Christian on campus outside of the couple that I already knew, I made it my mission to stick as closely as possible to such people. At that point in time they were my only hope if I truly wanted to grow as a Christian. As time progressed, I realized that I was not particularly growing as a Christian but acting as some type of spiritual chameleon that morphed into whoever I had surrounded myself with. I had become this cookie-cutter Christian. I learned a great deal about God and had developed a foundational belief upon which I stood; however, I still had no clue who God was in me.
Once I came upon that realization, I began to branch out in who I talked with. I began reaching out to, connecting with, and becoming friends with people from every type of background and belief. At first I thought that this would be a slippery slope to chaos and regret. However, surprisingly enough, the exact opposite happened. I began learning about who my new acquaintances and friends were and what they believed, an in return they began learning who I was and what I believed. In that exchange of information I grew stronger, much stronger than I could have ever imagined, in my walk with Christ. I began learning things about my friends and they began imparting wisdom into me. Each time someone told me a belief of theirs, I would try to incorporate such beliefs into my life. I would ask God how I can incorporate such a belief or point of view in my relationship with Him.
As I did that, God would show me one of two things: how exactly I could incorporate such views into my own walk, or how exactly such a view would not work in my walk with Him. The more things that were being incorporated within my walk with God the more I began developing as an individual within Christ. And as for the things that simply would never work, they became tools to strengthen my beliefs and why I cannot or will not share such a view as the person who shared it with me.
Sure, I've made plenty of mistakes these last four years of college, but each mistake has taught me a lesson that helped me grow as a professional, a person, and a Christian. The general belief amongst Christians is that a liberal arts school such as mine, that is notorious for its people and their secular beliefs, and even more notorious for its party life, is a school that should be avoided. But I argue that every Christian should look into attending such as a school for the fact that in adversity we grow, we blossom into the magnificent creatures God has created us to be.
