“Then the waters would have drowned us; the torrent would have come over our necks; then the raging waters would have come over our necks!” - Psalms 124:4-5 (Common English Bible)
Friends,
It is worth repeating that you are not alone. God has not abandoned you. As you walk into another week (or possibly the first week) of classes, and struggle with low internet capacity and zoom blackouts, God is right there with you. Through frustration and confusion, the Holy Spirit is surrounding you even as it feels like you’ll drown in an ever-increasing to-do list.
It’s worth naming that sometimes we wished we could escape doing it the hard way. When the waters of college are up to your neck, it is perfectly reasonable to wonder why life has to be hard. And yet, life often leaves us very few alternatives than to simply go THROUGH the struggle. Rich, poor, privileged, oppressed, brilliant or not, we all have seasons where the raging waters of life just keep coming. And it’s in those moments that we find God in the raging waters with us. This is also worth naming.
On the other side of the papers, the grades, the study groups and probably more Zoom outages, your story will be “I went through it and God was with me.” So college students - lean in and look around; God is right there with you. The waters of this semester may already be up to your necks, but they will not overcome you. Even in the age of Covid, GOD IS WITH YOU.
*This devotional was written by Derrick Scott III, executive director of Campus to City Wesley Foundation,a United Methodist multi-campus ministry in Jacksonville, Fla., St. Augustine, Fla., and the surrounding area,serving the campuses of University of North Florida, Jacksonville University, Flagler College and Edward Waters College.
