Kenneth G. Elzinga
Robert C. Taylor Professor of Economics
University of Virginia
[Feb. 4, 2013]
For years I found myself seeing office hours as an interruption, as a necessary evil in my faculty calling. Typically, faculty members are not enthusiastic about office hours. You can recognize this when you see , “Office Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Friday morning.” Or just “Office hours by appointment only”—that’s a real signal that students are not welcome there.
Yet, as I began to pray to be a servant-leader, I began to see my office hours as an opportunity to serve my students. Office hours became a place of connecting Jesus with my work. I’ve found that when I let God’s Spirit lead, I actually have a sense of anticipation about my office hours.
For example, I now pray that the Lord would bring students to my office, with whom I could naturally share the good news I found in Christ. This might involve a specific explanation of the claims of Christ, a shared story or example of what Jesus means to me, or by offering to serve my students in ways that I wouldn’t, if I weren’t a follower of Jesus. Over the years now, I’ve had hundreds of meaningful conversations about my faith in Christ.
Another particular way I serve my students is to pray for or with them. Almost half the students who come to my office have questions not narrowly concerned with the course material. Often those students with academic difficulty aren’t in trouble because they lack intellectual horse-power. Underlying their academic problems are broken relationships or broken lives. Such problems are beyond my human ability to come up with solutions. When this is the case, I tell them, “when I face such problems, I pray about them.” Then I’ll ask them if they’d mind if I pray for them. Not after they leave—but right then and there. No one has ever demurred. No one has ever said, “No, I don’t think so.”
I can imagine your hesitancy about praying with students, especially if you’re at a state-supported institution or a secular school—and especially one where the forces of political correctness are robust. I certainly don’t pray with every student who comes to my office with problems. I do try to pray with every student whom I believe or know to be a Christian and often for others as well. I especially try to pray with those for whom I feel praying will be an encouragement and affirmation. Many Asian-American students and even Jewish students have thanked me for my prayers for them.
Ask God for wisdom about this. Ask for wisdom to discern when such prayer is appropriate. Reserve it for that student in an unusually difficult situation when your own wisdom is constrained.
So why do I pray for my students? Because Jesus taught His disciples how to pray and His disciples often saw Him at prayer. They were sometimes invited to be with Him when He prayed. I want my students to know that I pray. It’s OK for my students to see that I’m broken at times by prayer.
And I, in a halting way, believe in the efficacy of prayer, and it reminds me that the world I live in and the time I’ve been given, even my office hours, are territories that Jesus stakes out as His.
(c) 2013 Ken Elzinga