Faith Crisis in Seminary: Counsel for Struggling Students

Joe tracked me down one working day. With desperation in his voice, he pleaded that I aid him take care of a crisis instant. As a seminary college student, he was overwrought with thoughts that he didn’t belong in seminary. He ticked off numerous motives for his question. He went to class, and his thoughts wandered. He tried to do class assignments, but he couldn’t care fewer. He was fatigued of exegeting biblical passages and creating theological convictions. He felt listless in his romance with God. And he entertained strong doubts about his perception of phone to ministry.

Joe absolutely isn’t alone in experiencing these uncertainties about his ministry aspirations even though in seminary. So, how should a college student reply if he enrolled in seminary with excellent expectations and huge-eyed surprise, only to uncover himself in these a faith crisis sometime for the duration of his experiments? As a longtime seminary professor, I have counseled learners with at the very least 3 lessons.

Never Be Amazed

A good area to start out is the apostle Paul’s words and phrases in Philippians 1:29: “It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you ought to not only imagine in him but also go through for his sake.” As a seminary student, you are getting ready for Christian ministry, and Satan hates Christian ministry. He will assault your religion and attempt to disturb your hope, derailing you from God’s connect with and future strategies for you. Also, the globe — people today who are hostile towards God and units that are ungodly — has you in its sights to entice unbelief and wipe out you. And of system, your have sinful nature rears its ugly head and seeks to drag you absent from these a calling.

How need to you react to these three enemies? Never yield to Satan’s trickery: “Submit yourselves for that reason to God. Resist the satan, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Direct your coronary heart towards God and away from the earth: “Do not love the globe or the factors in the world. If any one loves the planet, the enjoy of the Father is not in him” (1 John 2:15). Rely on the Holy Spirit: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the wants of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).

“Ask veteran saints around you about their practical experience of question, and know that you are not by itself in the fight.”

What you working experience is popular to all of us who have been in seminary. Indeed, “do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it will come upon you to test you, as even though a thing bizarre ended up taking place to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may perhaps also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Peter 4:12–13). Request veteran saints all over you about their knowledge of question, and know that you are not alone in the combat.

Never Remain for the Improper Factors

This sort of encounter is also a good prospect to diligently assess the purpose(s) you enrolled in seminary. Are you there for the reason that your grandfather and father (who were being pastors ahead of you) expect you to turn into a pastor much too? Or perhaps you assume that they expect you to develop into a pastor (however which is not in fact accurate of them). And if you’re sincere with by yourself, you’d somewhat be a dentist or an educator. But if you were to choose that other way, you’d no extended be on “God’s A-staff.” You’d be settling for his next ideal.

Now, if you have a pretty sensitive conscience, please really do not implement the higher than dialogue to oneself so that you question what you know as God’s foremost to seminary. Relatively, if you are in seminary to remember to others (granddad and father), or if you’re seeking for people today to admire you due to the fact you are on the elite squad (and that does not contain examining braces or educating biologists), please rethink your options.

Switching from theology to thermodynamics, if that is how God has wired and gifted you, may well be the proper stage — not the embarrassing or shameful move — to just take. And it may well serene any doubts that have arisen from wrongly attending seminary.

Really don’t Consider Doubt a Advantage

Last of all, don’t yield to the well known present-day shift to embrace doubt as a proper posture for Christians. Jesus rebuked his disciples as adult males “of tiny faith” when they questioned his skill to supply for their simple demands (Matthew 6:30). They feared for their life even though he was ready to rescue them (Matthew 8:26). They were being in comprehensive stress manner when threatened by their surroundings (Matthew 14:31). They disbelieved his vivid examples of provision (Matthew 16:8). They wondered why they failed when they did not have faith in Jesus and his power (Matthew 17:20). Jesus rebuked question as misguided.

Oppositely, Jesus healed individuals in reaction to their beautiful faith. 1 illustration is his healing of two blind adult males: Jesus “touched their eyes, stating, ‘According to your religion be it completed to you.’ And their eyes ended up opened” (Matthew 9:29–30). As a lady with a persistent discharge of blood touched him, “Jesus turned, and viewing her he reported, ‘Take coronary heart, daughter your religion has made you properly.’ And instantaneously the woman was manufactured well” (Matthew 9:22). As for the leper whose skin was made full, Jesus “said to him, ‘Rise and go your way your faith has built you well’” (Luke 17:19). As these narratives are provided to underscore the requirement of faith, we rightly conclude that these miracles would not have took place if doubt had gained the day.

In addition, Scripture celebrates adult men and women who, while in dire straits, refused to cave in to doubt but remained steadfastly devoted. Abraham is so extolled:

In hope he believed versus hope, that he should become the father of numerous nations, as he experienced been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in religion when he regarded his own overall body, which was as fantastic as lifeless (due to the fact he was about a hundred a long time previous), or when he regarded as the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief manufactured him waver concerning the guarantee of God, but he grew potent in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully confident that God was capable to do what he had promised. (Romans 4:18–21)

Likewise, Scripture applauds Sarah for her persistent rely on in the facial area of an impossibility: “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was previous the age, due to the fact she viewed as him trustworthy who experienced promised” (Hebrews 11:11).

“Don’t give way to the faddish fixation on doubt as a virtue.”

So, do not give way to the faddish fixation on doubt as a advantage. Religion is a fruit of the Spirit. It is ignited by the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). It is directed not inwardly but outwardly toward Christ and his gospel of grace. Even if assailed by doubt and shaken by temptations and trials, religion will prevail when it is riveted on the divine guarantees of our devoted God.

Stop of a Religion Disaster

This proved to be Joe’s encounter. When he to begin with approached me with his concerns and fears, my heart went out to him. However I and other folks have been self-confident about God’s calling on his lifestyle (which I believed bundled completion of seminary reports in planning for church ministry), I was grieved that Joe was experiencing these kinds of a test of his religion.

For a number of months, we achieved jointly, poring about the biblical passages noted higher than, examining how to triumph over the distractions to his scientific tests, praying for a renewed sense of God’s existence and provision, and envisioning the fruitful ministry that could open up up in front of him. By God’s grace and Joe’s persistence, he moved from disabling question to sturdy faith in God’s simply call on his lifetime.

If you, like Joe, didn’t sign up for a “faith crisis” course in seminary, but find you in one nevertheless, I hope and pray the same consequence will be true of you.