My friend Stuart spent the late hours of his birthday praying by name for each person who left a message on his Facebook wall that day.
I love how he gave such a precious gift to others on the day meant for him to receive all the special favors.
Reading his message reminded me of a friend who does something similar each year with the birthday cards she receives and the Christmas cards her family receives.
When it’s time to put the cards away, she gathers them in a basket and each day pulls out one card. She prays specifically for the person or family during her morning prayer time before filing it away.
Praying by name
My friend’s routine motivated me to attempt to pray for each of the classmates of my graduating nieces, nephew and dear friends during commencement ceremonies in recent years.
I prayed for each graduate — well, almost everyone — by name. My mind wandered a few times.
As each graduate’s name was called to receive his or her diploma, I repeated the name in my mind and added a quick prayer specifically for the graduating senior.
The pace of the names announced as well as the fact we all sat silent and still during that time made it a simple exercise, but staying focused and diligent through all the names required a bit of discipline and tenacity.
The opportunity to lift up so many young lives in a relatively short amount of time inspired me to look for more ways to do the same.
As your child, grandchild, other family member or friend’s child starts to school this fall, in whatever form that takes, consider developing your own form of praying for your student and those who surround him or her.
It might mean placing the football team roster next to your Bible, so you can pray for each player by name over the course of a week.
It could be asking for a group photo of the sorority or fraternity your student joins and praying every morning for each individual pictured.
Maybe once a month, you visit the website of specific schools and click around on their sites to find the list of faculty and staff members and pray for them by name.
And then once a quarter, you do the same for your alma mater — all of them starting with elementary school on up.
With the severe staff shortages in education, the faith community has an incredible opportunity to make a difference in the lives of our precious future generations.
Praying for community
We’ve already seen many church groups and other ministries at work filling and donating backpacks to countless communities, and most not only focused on the supplies but also prayed for the students receiving the backpacks.
Along with praying for the students themselves, we can pray for the people in their lives and that God would place good influences around each of them to help build them up and point them to a continually deepening love for Jesus.
As far as teachers and administrators, I’m going to focus my prayers on a specific preschool teacher, kindergarten teacher, special education teacher, school principal and college professor.
I’m also praying extra for a new hybrid-style home-school mom currently in her first week in the role.
Also, four college students, three high school seniors, one elementary school student and one preschool student all have a large piece of my heart, so I added them to the list as well.
And among our staff at The Baptist Paper, we have spouses, children, siblings and other close family members who are connected to the educational system in some way.
I’m guessing you have someone close to you working in education as well.
And what about your pastor and church staff? Do they have family members working in the school system? Maybe one or more of your church leaders are co-vocational and serve as teachers themselves.
If your pastor has school-aged children, then this month (and actually this year) would be a good time to show him grace and lots of encouragement.
And do remember school officials have families and inconvenient life issues happening to them as well as the rest of us. Sometimes they are juggling more than we realize.
What if Baptists across the nation committed to consistent prayer for our students, teachers, administrative staff and school systems in general? Can you imagine the possibilities?
