Written by Avina Khiatani

Usually a phrase like, “I sat down the other day and flipped open my Bible,” would be followed with an inspirational testimony or life-changing sermon.

But I sat down the other day, flipped open my Bible and groaned. Time for more personal reflection, I thought to myself.

We’re four weeks into the semester and students are already up to their ears in reading and homework. I happen to be taking three Bible classes this semester and it is no picnic.

It’s that time of the semester where the prior excitement of being back in school starts to fade. Our cheek muscles are starting to hurt from smiling, and Commons is slowly eating up our flex points. People are already starting to use their free absences, and there are actually seats in chapel now.

If you’re anything like me, you really enjoy going to chapel, only when the bulk of the semester hits, you realize you might actually enjoy sleep more. That’s why we go to as many as we can now, so we don’t have to go as often later on.

I went to After Dark last night, and it really got me thinking about this. After a short time of worship, we were told that all we were going to do that night was sit in silence and wait on God while passages of scripture were read.

My initial reaction was not a happy one.

For the first five minutes, running through my mind were all the things I could have been doing. I calculated the amount of time I would spend meditating, and wondered if it could count towards my devotional assignment. Then I stopped, startled as I realized how calloused I had become toward the beauty of the very presence of God.

At the beginning of every year we are reminded in class or in chapel to put God in the center of our lives. Yet as the semester goes along, it becomes increasingly easy to forget God, our Lord and Savior, in the pursuit of the Old Testament assignment “God,” the chapel credit “God,” and the missions trip meeting “God.”

I am in three Bible classes at a Christian school, where I’m required to go to at least 30 chapel sessions, and eight conference sessions, and still I lose sight of him. How is that possible?

We could graduate with Bible degree with a ton of knowledge ticked under our belts, yet still know nothing about him at all. It’s a truth so simple, yet so hard to grasp.

I think it all comes down to what we’re going to do in response to what we learn about him and whether we allow ourselves to be fascinated daily by his great glory.

“Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.”