Things I Learned in College

I came to Rice University four years ago, and I'm not really any smarter now, but I am wiser for the experiences I have here. I thought it'd be valuable to write down some of the things I've learned since I've been here. It's not a comprehensive list, but it's something.

1. Family is important.

You know, if you're like me, you grow up with your family and you spend a lot of that time wanting to get away from them. You can pick your friends because you have something in common with them, they're likeable, they're fun, or whatever quality you could predetermine, but your family is a random group of people that you're just stuck with: why wouldn't you prefer to be with your friends?

I grew up with a strained relationship with my dad, or at least I felt like I did, and to a fifteen or sixteen year old, that's all that matters: you feel like life's dealt you a lousy hand. Why don't my parents love me? I wondered. Of course they loved me, but teenagers have a really poor sense of perspective. At any rate, it was a huge turning point when I realized that I had not been asking the real question about love: how can I love my family?

I realized I'd been having the wrong approach to family: that it's not just a random assortment of people that are supposed to love you no matter what -- it's a random assortment of people that you get to love, no matter what. And what an opportunity to see and experience love as it really is. You don't love your sister or your brother because they're super-nice or for any other merit. You love them because they're your family and that's who God's given you to love. That's how God loves us. That's how we're supposed to love. It's hard work and it's so much more worth it because it's not easy.

I came to college wanting to get away from those annoying people that constituted my family. Now I realize that family is a God-given opportunity for us to learn about love.

2. Second Chances are Important.

I used to read the story about Jesus telling His followers to forgive their neighbors not seven times, but seventy times seven times. And of course, the point of the story is that we're supposed to embrace forgiveness without keeping a count of how many times we've been wronged. Obvious, right?

Since I started my first dating relationship a little over fifteen months ago, I've realized that I'm not naturally very good at forgiving. My girlfriend really seems to be. She's just about the most forgiving person in the world, and it puts me to shame. But I found that especially as she kept making the same mistakes over and over, I found it harder and harder to let it go. Why would you do this again? Didn't you do it yesterday, and realize how much it angers me? I know I'm supposed to forgive and everything, but how many times are you going to screw this up?
It is a lot of work to forgive. It is a lot of work to say, "It's okay, honey, I still love you, and I don't hold it against you" and really mean it every time.

It helped to read 1 Corinthians 13, where it says that love "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." The NIV says, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs."

It is humbling to realize that as much as I struggle with forgiving little things from day to day and giving someone a second chance every chance, God does the same for you, and He does it perfectly. It is no easier for Him; someone doing something wrong or hurtful to you is a universal downer. He is just that good.

3. Thinkers are common, talkers are common. Doers are rare.

4. God is bigger than I thought.

I more or less had God figured out when I came to college. Now I feel like I know very little about what there is to know about Him. I'll give an example: for a young believer, when they ask, "Does everyone who believes in Jesus get saved and go to heaven?" It's a pretty safe and true answer to say, "Yes." The answer to the real question at hand is, "Yes, if you give your life and yourself to Jesus, He's promised His salvation for you." But a more mature believer might ask, "Well, what about the Scriptures like James 2:19 where it talks about demons believing and trembling? What about Matthew 7:21-23? What about the whole doctrine of faith versus works?" And it would be good sense to reason that maybe not "everyone" who "believes" in Jesus would be saved, depending on how you define those terms. What about non-Christians? Do all of them go to hell? Romans 1:18-21 would suggest that people who don't even hear the gospel have a chance to realize and accept God or reject Him. Where do we even get our conception of hell? What does the Bible say about hell? Not a whole lot in very clear description.

As I've studied Scripture and pursued God through my time at Rice, I've come to realize that a lot of the things I used to think were simple black and white, are not as obvious or defined as I thought they were. Of course there are truths to live by, and some of my contemplation is foolishness. But God is much, much bigger and beyond my understanding than that feeble religious system I had Him pegged in when I came to Rice four years ago.

5. Experience counts.

In Bible study and in ministry, I'm starting to give more value to experience than I used to.


These things seem obvious, but they're not until you really learn them.