As college students, we are constantly surrounded by people. Peers and friends fit into many different categories. From the ‘school friend’ you see once a week in class, to a roommate who gets to see all aspects of your life, we typically aren’t alone unless we try to be.
Why then, can pursuing our faith be so lonely? In some sense, it can feel like the weight of the world is on our shoulders and we can be led to believe that nobody could ever understand the things we feel. Am I praying enough? Am I generous enough? Am I enough? These questions can force us inward, but not necessarily in a way that is good for us, let alone for our pursuit of a true and total relationship with Jesus. We can be convinced: Me, me, me. It’s up to ME to ‘figure out’ the faith thing.
But Jesus’s life tells us otherwise. In fact, in typical Jesus fashion, He dispels the lies we are led to believe not just with His words, but with His actions.
As a first step into his public life, Jesus did something bold: he sought out people to journey with Him. I often take for granted the presence of the 12 Apostles in Jesus’s story because they are familiar names and faces. However, their presence is critical to Jesus’s mission, and consequently, our own life on mission.
Like Jesus, we can (and should!) choose our 12. Like Jesus, we have the freedom to eat, live, travel, and pray with a group of peers who lift us up and challenge us to go deeper in our pursuit of relationship with Him. I found it to be a powerful prayer and reflection to consider the 12 closest people in my own life. This week, consider doing the same and think about the following: How did this person become one of my 12? Does this person’s presence in my life move me closer to heaven? What can I learn from this person and their life that might lead me deeper into a relationship with Jesus?
Even bolder would be to reach out to your 12. Let them know of the significance they hold in your life. Be intentional about journeying with them, reminding and encouraging one another that we are not alone in our pursuit of a loving relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus’s mission was lived as a part of community; so too are we called and blessed with the chance to live out our own mission—together.