A Prayer For You Today

Dear friends,

Our local public-school year is about to begin. I suspect many homeschoolers’ year is, too. Accordingly, in honor of our many teachers, paraprofessionals, staff, students, and parents, our prayer today to God our Father will keep each in the front of our minds.

A prayer for you today.

O God, who in wisdom

Laid the world’s foundation,

Remind us it is no trivial task to teach:

To inspect and wonder,

To discipline and discern,

To see the world through the eyes of

Those still fresh in learning it,

To show them nature as You made it,

And invite them to know it more fully.

Teaching often seems summed up in mere grades

And emails

And papers

And raised hands

And disruptions,

But really it is a feast,

A community

A gift,

A discovery of the world

And its inherent value.

We see in teaching a divine act

That forms and shapes, it weaves in

All of history and matter and truth

And goodness and offers it to students

In a way which may guide their thoughts

And their decisions and

May change them for good.

In Your hands

Our Great Teacher,

Nothing is wasted or lost.

No failed lesson plan or disruptive student can thwart Your plan for all humanity-for redemption and restoration.

Thank You for letting them play a small but noble role in that plan.

I pray our students desire to know, and not just appear to know, or seem to know, or kind of know.

I pray that all knowledge leads them closer to seeing You, and delighting in

the way You crafted the world.

Do what no one can do -turn their gaze to You.

And just as the robin does not busy herself with anything but the task before her, let them teach day by day, and teach well.

Remind them now of the humanity and dignity of their students.

They are not good or bad students, not obnoxious or obedient,

but human beings, not more or less or other

Students are dear to You, God, capable of great virtue,

and this is just the beginning of

their lifelong commission, their ambition of knowing You

and Your creation better, more fully.

Sober them to the reality of their students' future happiness or future misery.

Teach them to steward their affections well:

by speaking earnestly of things that matter, by carefully separating truth from falsehood, by condemning unrighteousness, by valuing beauty and whatever is

true and excellent and praiseworthy.

Teach them to direct them to true goodness, to knowing and imitating You,

to be holding the beauty of a dandelion, a novel, an idea, an equation,

and in all of this, the harmony of all of creation, the thread of brokenness and restoration, the appearance of injustice and the coming justice of the whole world—

let me remind them and myself that its goodness sings of You.

Amen.

A Liturgy Before Teaching

Allie Osborn, from Every Moment Holy Volume III

Slightly abridged

May God bless all of you in exceptional and tender ways this school year.

Pastor Joe