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

A special note to all the Christian Mom's out there

At roughly 8:30pm on June 5th 2019 my oldest "baby" graduated from High School.  Talk about being proud.  It was almost a surreal moment for me personally.  Obviously I know that this day was coming and had been slowly and steadily approaching over the last 18 years but here it was finally appearing in all of it's glory.

 As I watched my son smile and wave to those that were there to support him and then walk across the stage it reminded me of a very, Very VERY important biblical truth and that is of a moms vital role in the lives of her children.

One of the most overlooked people in all of scripture is found briefly in Acts 16:1 and 2 Timothy 3:14-15.  If you read these passages you won't even find her name but you will find a description of this amazing woman.  We don't know much about her but what we do know about this woman's identity is that she was Timothy's mom.  We also know that she was married to a non-believer who did not raise his son in the Lord (Acts 16:1).  We also know that from childhood mom taught Timothy "the sacred writings which were able to give him the wisdom that lead to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Timothy 3:14-15).  This mom taught her son the scriptures that eventually lead to his salvation.

Over the last few months, I've had several folks tell me what a great young man Ryan is and how much he stands out from his peers.  They tell me that Stef and I did a great job raising him and that we should be proud of him and ourselves. While I appreciate their comments I give all glory to God alone.  Especially when I think about all the things we did wrong or that we would do over if we could.  I think that one of the most misunderstood passages in all of scripture is from 1 Timothy 2 where Paul talks about God's design for leadership in the church and in the home.  There is NO question that God ALWAYS pours out His grace when situations are less than ideal but there is no doubt that the relationship between a mother and her son is unique.  It just is.  The relationship that my wife has with my sons is different than mine and always will be just because she's mom.

Timothy's mom taught her son the scriptures from childhood since dad did not and she raised up a Christ-like young man that God used to literally change the world and write part of the New Testament.  He graduated from mom's high school and then he left for "college" to hang out with Paul and the rest is history.  I think that a lot of times we, as passionate Jesus followers, desperately want to change the world around us and that is GREAT THING!  However, sometimes we overlook the fact that as parents and in this case specifically as a mom, there are seasons in life where the most important contribution we can make to the Kingdom of God is not WHAT WE DO for the kingdom but WHO WE RAISE as It's citizens.  For all the moms out there DO NOT under value your service to the Kingdom by thinking that you are "JUST raising your kids" in Christ.  You don't have to preach  to the masses or lead a bible study or evangelize the world to be effective or useful to the Kingdom of God and the cause of the Gospel.  If you want to change the world, start by loving and discipling your family first.  Your primary and most important job is to "teach the sacred writings" to your children so that they will grow in knowledge that may lead them to salvation.  When this is a priority for you, you never know what could happen.  Years from now after all the long nights filled with crying and changing diapers are gone and the weekend sports games are over and the music lessons and family dinners and math homework are no more.  When your midnight visits to the ER disappear as your little one finally graduates from your family home and moves out to start the next chapter of their life...  you might not have ever noticed it before, but looking back I pray that God show you glimpses that you have be raising your own little Timothy the entire time.  What's more I pray for your son or daughter as well as mine that one day the Spirit of Jesus Christ will send them out to change the world in their own way and in their own time for the honor and glory and praise of the name of Jesus Christ.

"I have no greater joy than this, 

to hear of my children walking in the truth" 

3 John 4