A Christian father’s prayer for the school year

Father tonight I lift up our students to You. I thank You Lord for the gift of education freely given to all children within our community. Father I also thank You for the countless men and women who work hard daily to educate our children. Thank You for the teachers who work directly with our children. Thank You for the custodial staff that work so hard to provide a welcoming environment for our children. Thank You for the safety staff that make sure that our students are safe while at school and I ask Lord that you watch over our students so that these men and women do not need to exercise their training this school year. Thank You Lord for the office staff and the administrators who lead these teams and hold everything together. Please encourage all these men and women and remind them how important their calling is for our families and for our community.

Father I ask for You to please watch over our kids this year. Please grow them relationally, emotionally, physically, academically and spiritually. Please show all students how much You love them through the words and actions of those who know and follow Your Son. Please help these young disciples to show Your love to those around them without exception and without limit. Please remind us and teach us that Your love is free and without limit for all people of every shape, size, color, economic background, language and any and every other type of man-made barrier. Please break down such barriers this school year Lord and draw us all together as one community united through Your Son. Please help our students to be quick to listen and slow to speak. To treat others as they would like to be treated. To be kind for no reason other than to love their neighbors as themselves. Please help them to ask for Your forgiveness and the forgiveness of those around them when they fall short and make mistakes with these things.

Father as parents please remind us to be good stewards of the time that you’ve entrusted these precious kids to us. Remind us that every day is a gift and that although the days sometimes are long the years will be very short. Help us to cherish moments in the present knowing that You will take care of the future.

Above all else Lord I ask that you bring honor and glory to Yourself through the lives of my boys so that others will see not them, but Christ IN THEM and as a result give You praise. I ask all these things in Jesus’ name and for His sake. Amen.

The Prayer of a Father

This morning during my AWG time the Spirit of the Lord taught me or perhaps reminded me of a simple truth that has stuck with me all day.  I pray that for all the other parents out there, especially other first timers into the season of college life like me, I pray that the Comforter will comfort you as He did me through His word below:

A few days ago, I started to reread the Gospel of Mathew.  This morning's reading was chapter 4.  As I opened up my Bible I found several verses that I had highlighted at some point but this morning verse 22 stuck out to me for the first time.  The few verses prior teach us that Jesus had called Peter and his brother Andrew to follow Him and shortly thereafter He called John and James to do the same.  In verse 22, the Holy Spirit records how James and John the "brothers of thunder" respond to Jesus' invitation to follow Him. 

"Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him"  Matthew 4:22

Anyone who has asked me about my oldest leaving for college knows how much of a challenge this new season of life has been for me.  Although the Lord granted me peace over this a few months ago it's still not easy to think about…  the idea of my "little baby" no longer living with the rest of our family most of the time is something that I can't yet grasp.  As I read and then highlighted verse 22 this morning, the Lord reminded me of an important truth through these three little words "and their father" that Matthew recorded.  The more that I thought about this phrase today, the more obvious the point became.  You see,  Jesus had hand picked his first disciples.  He had great plans for these men.  They would see things that others would never see, hear things that others would never hear BUT there was a condition to all this.  These young men not only had to follow Jesus but they also had to leave the lives that they were used to AND their father in order to do so.  So what's my point? 

This morning the Lord reminded me through the example of this nameless dad that this same situation will come into the lives of every parent that has a son or daughter that follows Jesus.  There will come a point in the lives of these young adults when Jesus will call them away from their parents to follow Him.  He already has great plans for them (Eph 2:10)  Things that only He can show them.   Things that only He can teach them.   Places only He can take them.  Their job in all this is to obediently follow Jesus.  Our job as parents is to trust the One who called them to follow and then like the nameless father of James and John…. to simply let them go.

"for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him" 2 Timothy 1:12