Is it time to leave already? It's that part of the semester where students are downing coffee like it's their major and holding themselves hostage in the library. And why? Finals.

About this time last semester I wrote an article pointing out different Bible verses to help college students through finals. It did incredibly well (Almost 600 shares! Wowza!), so I thought maybe this time around I'd do a Part II. However, with it being not just the end of the semester but the end of the school year, I've been thinking about something a little different: the "Christian College Bubble."

If you go to a Christian college like me, you know what I'm talking about. The "Christian College Bubble" is this invisible force that surrounds an entire Christian college. When you're inside it, life is amazing. Jesus pops up everywhere you go ("I really saw God today while eating french toast sticks at the cafeteria."), the amount of opportunities for spiritual growth are endless ("Sorry I have to leave this Bible study early, but I have to make it to my other Bible study that starts directly after this one.") and you always seem to be on that Jesus high ("I'm so ready to praise the Lord at chapel today. I've raised my hands at almost every single one."). And this is great! Fantastic, actually! It's incredible that we're able to spend four years nurturing our faith in a place filled with people who actually want to help us do so. But what happens when we leave?

Maybe you're graduating, or maybe you're just leaving for the summer like me. Either way, how do we cope with stepping out of the "Christian College Bubble" and out into the "real world?" You know, the world where you can't assume that every person you come in contact with is a Christian. The world where no matter how many churches you try out, you never seem to find one with people your own age. The one where Jesus seems to be nowhere.

I'm writing this article because I genuinely need help with this. Last summer I felt so spiritually dry. I couldn't wait to return to Hope College and get back into the Christian grind again, but I know (and I think you know, too) that God doesn't call us to stay in one comfortable place forever. Mark 16:17 says, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation." It doesn't say, "Stay at your Christian college and preach the gospel to people who have already heard it a million times." We're meant for more. So let's walk through this together.

I think there's this misconception that God's presence is greater in certain areas. Like, you can definitely feel God on your campus, but maybe not so much when you go back home. Maybe you think God hangs out more often at your college, like he's this cloud that just stays over the top of your campus and never moves. When it's not on top of you, you've left God's super-awesome-presence zone. But this isn't true.

God is King of over all the earth. His sovereignty is so great that we can't even fully comprehend it. Psalm 135:6 says, "Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in Heaven and earth, in the seas and all the deeps..." God is the creator and ruler of literally everything from the planets light-years away from us to those fish with the lights on their heads in the darkest depths of the ocean. He doesn't just own one spot. He is King of everything.

But sometimes we think, "Yeah, I know that God's ruler of the entire earth, but He has other things He's tending to. He doesn't care to travel alongside me." That's a lie straight from Satan. Look at Romans 8:37-39:

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

There is literally nothing that can take God's love away from us. If you think something you've done would cause God to pay less attention to you, that is a lie from Satan, too. This verse says that not even death can separate us from God. He's going to be with you. He is with you. Nothing can change that.

But then there is the question of, "OK, if God's with me, why don't I feel His presence as much?" This answer is a little harder to uncover, because it really is a frustrating place to be in, but I did find something that caught my eye. Jeremiah 29:13 says, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Maybe this verse makes you a little angry. Maybe in your mind you actually have been seeking God with all your heart. But I want to point out ... are you seeking Him, or are you seeking others who will show Him to you? Now, I don't think there's anything terribly wrong with the latter, but at a Christian college, it's easy to get into this routine where other people are serving Christ to you on a silver platter. You don't really have to do any work to see God because you have others like worship teams, chaplains and Bible study leaders to do the dirty work for you. And these resources are great, don't get me wrong, but I think Jesus calls us to most importantly to do that dirty work ourselves, to dig into our Bible and wrestle with the hard questions. Therefore, if you're graduating, expect to spend some serious one-on-one time with just you and God, and if you're not graduating yet, use these next couple college years to practice. That way you won't feel so terrible when you leave.

OK, so we've made it through a lot, but I still think we're missing something ... I want to wrestle with another idea: what if the most fulfilling way to feel God's presence is to follow His guidance? As we go our separate ways after finals, we're scattering all over the globe. Some of us are going back home. Some of us are taking summer terms in foreign countries. Some graduating seniors will be starting real-life jobs! But have you thought about where God wants you? Have you prayed about where you're going to go? Now, don't feel this pressure to pick the right place. It's not like if you go against what God desires that he'll leave you on your own. We've already covered that. That's not how God's love works.

But I'm talking about the most fulfilling way to feel God's presence. Maybe if you're wondering if you'll feel God's presence in your next chapter you should ask Him where He really wants you. Take Paul, for example, my favorite figure in the Bible. Throughout Paul's missionary journeys, he constantly leaned on God's guidance to tell him where to go. You can see this in Acts 16:6-10:

"They passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and after they came to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them; and passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. A vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him, and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them." And yes, Paul ended up in prison after following God's guidance, but if you look at his letters, you can see that he felt God's presence immensely. So just ask God if you're really that frustrated. He'll point you where you need to go.

But I want to end on what I think is the most important thing to remember: any place is a good place to share God's truth. You do not have to be in the "correct spot" to proclaim the good news. Like it mentioned in Mark 16:17, we're called to share the gospel to everyone. God gives us the Holy Spirit to have his power and authority to do so, and the cool thing about the Holy Spirit is that it's not really us doing the work; it's the Holy Spirit working through us. I could go on about the Holy Spirit for forever, but maybe that's another article.

So if you're worried about feeling not God's presence when you leave the "Christian College Bubble," relax! God's got you because He's got the whole world, and He prepared us for seasons like this by giving us his Holy Spirit. Just take a breath, turn your gaze on Him and ask Him what to do. Who knows? Maybe your "real world" Jesus high will be even greater than your "Christian College Bubble" one.