Connecting Spiritually with Students

Students are near graduation when they take my class, so they often express excitement, trepidation, and occasionally serious doubts about entering the next phase of life. These points alone are reason enough to ask students to write. I think they find the exercise helpful. Sometimes it opens the door to spiritual conversations. 

Recently, a student confided that she often pondered the meaning of life and her purpose here on earth. She went on to declare that no one truly knows the meaning of life. She also asked me to share some things about myself. Though many students discuss spiritual or philosophical matters, Christian or otherwise, this student’s thoughts were especially stirring. 

I believe the meaning of life is Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and rose again so that we might have eternal life. Yet I hesitated to respond since we had not met in person, an unfortunate byproduct of the Covid19 pandemic and the resulting online classes. I also feared that this would somehow come back to bite me at the university.

In the end, the Holy Spirit laid several things on my heart:

• While the things of the earth might seem important, my purpose rests on the things of heaven to God’s glory. Doing teaching and research as a professor might seem all-important and worthy to protect at any cost, but these are not the ends. Rather they are the means to reach my campus for Jesus. 
• I might be one of only a few believers to cross paths with her. So, every contact she has with a believer is important. I had to be bold! 
• She invited me to share about myself, so how could I pass that up? 

Ultimately, as Paul wrote to the church at Corinth, “Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.” (2 Cor 5:14). I had to write to her. 

I waited until after she finished my class because I did not want her to feel pressure to respond for the sake of a grade. I wrote her a simple message that Jesus gives me my purpose in life and attached a link to my video testimony. She has yet to write me back, but the Lord does much of His work behind the scenes, so I am content. I continue to pray that God is using my note to draw her to Him.

You may already be utilizing creative ways to engage your students in spiritual conversations: inviting them to the student center to discuss anything but the class (as a friend of mine has done) or hosting them in your home. Or you might invite them to write about themselves as I have done. You never know what God might do with that!