Devotional for Postgraduate StudentsНамуна

“…And it was good”

Genesis Chapter 1 outlines God‘s process of creating the world and everything in it. This chapter contains the repeated phrase “and God saw that it was good”. This phrase came after each stage of creation and not just at the end of the whole process.

Don’t you love how God said, “It was good” throughout each stage of the creation journey? This is a beautiful example of what our approach should be to our studies. Celebrate, affirm, and declare ‘good‘ over each step you take, whether that be finishing a paragraph, a chapter, completing your readings, and so on.

We are reminded that it does not have to be finished to be good. Each step you take on this postgraduate journey is ’good‘ and the accumulation of good steps will eventually become a great completed ‘thing’ for all to see.

“It is not good”

On this postgraduate journey, you may receive feedback that resembles the phrase “it is not good” (Genesis 2:18, NIV).

If our great God could identify a missing part in His creation, we would surely have missing parts in the assignments and projects that we are working on in our studies.

The feedback is not the end. Our response to feedback is what determines the beauty of the final creation. Look at how God responds. He does not sulk, wallow, ignore or put his hand of creation down. Instead, God does something to address the feedback. God actively and intentionally responds with the resources at His disposal.

In the same way, when you receive feedback, you should actively respond with the resources available to you, whether that be your lecturers, supervisors, academic journals, example essays, library shifts and like we learnt in previous days of this devotional, the resource of prayer and the Holy Spirit!