Updated 4/24/12

You never quite know when God’s going to show up — and completely alter the course of your life.

This same is true for our students.

There are some obvious times, and spaces, where our students will likely be more open to God — even looking for God.

But will they be ready when God shows up in a more unlikely location?

For me, it came at the end of my freshmen year of college — while I was preparing to register for my fall classes.

I was a chemistry major at the time.

Yep.

Chemistry.

At that point in time I had been a follower of Jesus for almost 3 years, but I was really only finishing up my first year of earnest discipleship.

As I sat in my dorm room, perusing the academic catalog (your remember those things — right?), trying to figure out if I really had to jump right back into another semester of Organic Chemistry — it was suddenly as if God showed up.

To my best recollection I can’t recall that I prayed for God’s guidance or leadership in that process — in fact, I was fairly confident I was just going to work off of the plan that my advisor had mapped out for me — I simply needed to find the corresponding course numbers in the catalog and write them down on my registration card (sounds like an archaic process in today’s world — doesn’t it?).

So as I sat there, very aware of God all around me, I felt God leading me to look a little further back in the catalog — back in the Religion and Ministry section.

I was floored.

But not wanting to miss out on what God might be trying to communicate with me, I began to flip the pages of the catalog.

Arriving at the Religion and Ministry section, I again sat stunned… needing further encouragement from God to look at the options and sign up for some classes.

Wait, what?

Religion classes?

Me?

“Uhh… I think you might have me confused with somebody else,” I remember thinking — or speaking — to God.

But after a moment of reassurance, it was as if God had left the building, and everything was seemingly back to normal.

But it wasn’t.

I now had a choice to make.

Would I follow through with what felt to me like a Divine directive?

Or would I stick to the plan that my advisor and I had decided upon?

Well, as you might have guessed, I opted to take some of the religion and ministry classes that next fall — and sensed both an affirmation in that decision, and also a call into full-time ministry.

And it wouldn’t be until almost 3 years later, as I was getting ready to graduate, that God would speak to me again regarding this call — from what I assumed would be work in the Church to a definitive call to the Campus.

Yes, God can show up — and speak into our lives — in some of the most unlikely of settings.

So I wonder:

How are we preparing our students to “hear” from God — even in something as mundane as registering for classes?

Have we taught them to have an openness to change — even radical change — like that of Chemistry to Ministry?

Do they understand their sense of calling as something that is ongoing — dynamic — and not a singular moment?

I’d love to hear about your story of receiving God’s call into ministry… and how you have these kinds of conversations with students!

If you have a moment, please share your thoughts in the comment section below. Thanks!