Praying Our Way Through Another School Year

It's that time again! Today is the first day of school in Houston, which means excitement and nervousness for kids, parents, teachers and administrators. You could feel the buzz in the air yesterday as we talked to many of our friends sending kids to the classroom, and quite a few headed back to the classroom themselves. 

Last year our church started a new tradition--every kid headed back to school gets adopted by a family committed to praying for that kid to have a great school year. Last year, we chose a little boy named Kevin, and I wrote a prayer for him. This year, we adopted a set of boys--Syd and Scout--but we also decided to keep Kevin too. 

Last year, I issued the following challenge:

So here's a fun exercise. I would like for every one of you who reads this post to find one person (or more, if you're feeling ambitious!) among your FB friends--a child going back to school, or a teacher trying to guide many--and say a prayer specifically for that person. You can borrow the below prayer, or you can say your own. And feel free to share! Let's see what happens when we are intentional about putting this 2013-14 school  year in God's hands!

And I'm doing it again! Find one (or more) kid (or teacher) from among your FB friends, and pray for them to have a great year at school this year. And let them know! Maybe it will make the whole process feel just a little bit less daunting. Below I have written a prayer for our "adopted" boys you are welcome to borrow if you want. And if you want to tell me in the comments of teachers, kids, or maybe even parents who need praying for this school year, I'm happy to add them to my own prayer list as well.

Heavenly Father,

We find ourselves, yet again, at the beginning of a new school year, and I'm coming to you, asking that you will be with Syd, Scout, and Kevin.

Please watch over them, Lord, as they get to know new teachers, new classmates, and perhaps even new schools. This whole process can be very exciting, and very daunting, all at once. Please calm their nerves, Lord, and help them focus. Give these boys peace as they face so many new, unknown things; help them know that You are their navigator, and nothing is unknown to You.

Please encourage Syd, Scout, and Kevin; guide them to good friends and good influences, and give them strength to resist the bad ones. Help them to recognize the difference when that is a hard thing to do.

Please be with the boys' teachers, Lord, theirs and the many others working so hard to reach and teach our children. Please give them encouragement on the rough days, help them feel appreciated, and give them wisdom to know the best way to reach our kids, and teach them to love learning.

Most importantly, Lord, please help Syd, Scout, and Kevin to know that you are there, with them as they face every new challenge, make every new friend, learn every new passion that this year has in store. Watch over them all and keep them safe.

I ask all these things in your sweet Son's name,

Amen

A Prayer for Veterans Day

As you all know, today is Veterans Day. This one happens to be weighing especially heavy on me, because my veteran is still on active duty, and right now he's in a war zone. Honestly, I've been having a hard time parsing what's in my heart about today. And when I can't parse it out with myself, I tend to parse it out with God. So in case any of you are feeling any of these same things today, I thought I would share:

Heavenly Father,

Today is Veterans Day. But setting aside just one day to honor people who lay down their lives for the rest of us really seems like a pittance to pay. After all, it was your Son who told us that there is no greater love than self-sacrifice for others.

I am glad, dear Lord, that today is a day specifically marked to remember. But please help us to never forget the brave men and women who have risked everything, offered up everything they have at the tabernacle of liberty for all of us. Help us to be mindful of these great sacrifices, to honor them, and to show profound gratitude for the protectors of our way of life.

But don't just let us be grateful, Father. May we never stop at planting flags and expressing patriotic sentiments. Help us to recognize that each veteran is a person, battle-tested so that we do not have to be, and we owe them much. Help us be intentional about seeking out ways to repay those debts. Help us show, not just say, that we appreciate their service.

Help us earnestly search for the ways, great and small, that we can help lift these men and women up. Some of them return home with wounds we can see, needs we can immediately recognize. Motivate us, dear Lord, to meet a need when we see it, and not to turn a blind eye because the price of war is hard to behold.

Many of these brave men and women come home with wounds that are invisible. Sometimes those are much harder to heal, and much harder to help. Father, please help us never be dismissive of the "hard cases." None of them were dismissive of us. Help us remember that sometimes the longest roads back home have the most important lessons to teach us.

Most of all, dear Lord, help us always remember the cost of our freedom. May we never forget the countless lives, limbs, and comrades lost. May we never take for granted the families separated, the mothers and fathers who have had to leave their own children in order to defend ours. 

In these times, Lord, it is easy to complain. It is easy to be disappointed with this country, angry with its leaders, pessimistic about its future. Help us remember that this nation, warts and all, is a gift, freely given at great costs to the givers who believe that she is worth it, and we should strive to prove them right.

In Your sweet Son's name I pray,

Amen.

Prayers to Start a New School Year

This week, as I walked into church on Sunday morning there was a very large table set up in the entryway. On the table were hundreds of clear plastic sandwich bags. In each bag were two items: a picture of a child, and a magnet bearing this phrase: "Please pray for me!"

The assignment was simple: each family in the church takes a baggie. Each child's picture goes on someone's refrigerator. The family prays for that particular child as he or she begins a new school year. That way, every child in the church is being prayed for specifically by someone.

I really love that! And what I love most is that many of us don't even know the child we are praying for. The church has a Spanish ministry and a Chinese ministry, and though we sometimes come together for fellowship they have their own worship services in their native languages. Shoot, even the fluently English-speaking among us don't all know each other because there are two morning services on Sunday! But there they were, all of our children, laid out on a table. One thing in common, and one goal for all of us: pray for these kids as they head back to school.

My family chose Kevin. I don't know Kevin or his family, but I wrote a prayer for him and you can see it below. We pray for him every day. And I know enough educators to know that it's not just the kids who need strength and encouragement to start a new year, so I've been borrowing Kevin's prayer for the teachers too.

So here's a fun exercise. I would like for every one of you who reads this post to find one person (or more, if you're feeling ambitious!) among your FB friends--a child going back to school, or a teacher trying to guide many--and say a prayer specifically for that person. You can borrow Kevin's prayer, or you can say your own. And feel free to share! Let's see what happens when we are intentional about putting this 2013-14 school  year in God's hands!

Heavenly Father,

As we begin yet another school year, I ask you to be with Kevin.

Starting school can be exciting, but it can also be pretty frightening. Whether it's a new teacher, a new school, new classmates, or new subjects to learn, there's a lot of the unknown to deal with. 

Please help Kevin not to worry about the unknown. Give him peace, and help him know that You are his navigator, and it's not unknown to You.

Please encourage Kevin, guide him to good friends and good influences, and give him strength to resist the bad ones. Help him to recognize the difference when that is a hard thing to do.

Please be with Kevin's teachers; may they lift him up and help him learn all of the things that he needs to, and may they instill in him a love for learning. Give them patience with him on his rough days. Give him patience with them on theirs.

Above all else, Lord, help Kevin know that You are there. Every step, every turn, every quiz and lesson and lunch break--You are there watching over him because You love him.

I ask these things in Your sweet Son's name,

Amen.

Prayer for a Deployed Soldier

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

Jeremiah 29:11-13

Heavenly Father,

It feels really weird to feel thankful that my soldier now finds himself in a war-torn place. But the fact that he's there means he traveled safely; for that, I'm very grateful. 

Now, he stands at the beginning of an even greater journey. He will need You. Please be with him. Help him to rely on You, and look to You in times of uncertainty.

He is in a place where it's impossible to be out of harm's way; please watch over him as he tries to navigate through it.

Please give him peace of mind in this place where peace is a distant memory.

Please stand by him and protect him as he does the same for his fellow soldiers.

Please watch over him while he sleeps, and rest his soul when sleep is hard to come by.

Please comfort him when he's hurting, and remind him You are there when he is lonely and longing for home.

Please help him know how much he is loved and missed, and help me to know how I can make him feel like he's not quite so far away.

Please see him through every step of this journey; help his feet to find the right path, and give him the wisdom to follow it, to follow You.

Above all else, Father, please, PLEASE bring him safely home to his family when his work is done.

I ask these things in Your sweet Son's name,

Amen.

I Want to Pray

Today is the National Day of Prayer. It's a day where we are likely to hear messages to God lifted up across radio and television stations, in our town squares, and in our nation's capital. It's 5:30am in Houston, I've just driven to the airport, and my own radio produced a constant chain of prayers throughout the drive. Prayers for our nation; prayers for peace; prayers for our houses of worship; prayers for our children; prayers for our men and women in uniform. 

It got me thinking. Lately I've been having a lot of conversations with friends about prayer. Maybe it's because we celebrated Easter recently, or maybe it's because my friends feel comfortable talking about such things with me. If the latter, it warms my heart. But either way, many of you have told me that in times of great joy, sorrow, or stress you want to pray, but you don't know where to start. 

And I get it. If you don't talk to God all the time, saying a prayer is like striking up a conversation with a stranger about the deepest secrets of your heart. With the added complication of, you know, God being God. It's awkward, and it's intimidating. My conversations with you lately have reminded me why there are so many books of prayers. Just search on Amazon and you'll find over 100,000! Here's the truth: people want to talk to God. But many just don't know how.

I could spend thousands of words setting your mind at ease about that. I could tell you that God knows your heart, and you can't screw up prayer. I could tell you that you can do it on your knees because your mind is in a humble place, or with your hands lifted to the sky because your mind is in a joyous place, or with no outward signs at all, at your desk, because that's where you are and that's where you need Him.

But instead, for today, I thought I'd just let you see my prayer for National Day of Prayer. It's yours if you want it. I hope it blesses your day. And please keep asking me about prayer.

Heavenly Father,

Today is a day when people are thinking about You. That's good in so many ways, but especially because today people are thinking beyond themselves and reflecting.

Father, we're grateful. We are so richly blessed. In our families, in our homes, in all the many benefits we have access to living in this nation. Help us be grateful. Help us remember all of the things that we have, the things that matter, and help us rejoice in them.

Father, we're also mindful. We're mindful of the men and women who protect our freedoms, even when it costs them their lives. We're mindful of the families of our protectors. God, please bless them. Please comfort them; they sacrifice much for us. Please help us know how to help military families, and please bring their soldiers home safely.

Father, we're mourning. We're a nation struck by recent tragedy, and we're people struck by personal tragedies of some kind every day. We can't make sense of it. We don't understand it, and the losses weigh heavy on us. Please comfort us. Give peace to our troubled hearts. And help us reach out to the people facing tragedy and show them love. 

Father, we ask that You be with our leaders, in our churches, in our communities, and in our governments. Give them wisdom. Help them know what is right, and have the strength to do it. Help them seek justice, yet love mercy. God, please help us respect and support them, even when we disagree with them. Help us believe the best of people, especially our leaders, and know that in the end Your will be done. 

We are a nation divided, Lord, in many ways. Some of them needless, born of an unwillingness to listen, and a willingness to assume the worst in people.  Help us resist the impulse to these things Lord. Give us strength of our own convictions, but also a willingness to listen. Help us believe in the goodness of people and have an open mind to others, a heart to understand.

We ask for peace, dear Lord, in our hearts, in our homes, in our communities, and in our world. Help us actively seek the place where we can coexist with people, all of Your children, despite differences. Give us wisdom. Give us a heart of humility.  Give us the mind of Christ.

Please bless our families, dear Lord. Bless our marriages, keep them strong, and filled with love. Please bless our children. Help us know how to raise them to be people who know You, who show Your love to the world around them, and who make a difference.

Above all things, Lord, we ask for love. Help us appreciate the love in our lives. Help us to love our families, our friends, and our neighbors well. Help us show love and kindness to other people remembering that You love all mankind, and we are Your hands on this earth.

In Christ's name I pray all these things,

Amen.