Ready for School

It is that time of year when school buses rev their engines and back packs are pulled out of summer-time storage in the bottom of the closet. ( I am hoping no one is getting an early start on a science project growing in the buried back pack!) The lunch boxes are filled and ready to go. There have been multiple trips to stores to get school supplies, new clothes and shoes that fit the summer growth spurts. This morning alarm clocks buzzed and beeped for the first time since June, much to the groans of my children. We are ready for school to start.

Spritual Preparations

Have you ever noticed there is one preparation that can easily get lost in the business of the back to school shuffle? Prayer. Have I helped my kids prepare for the challenges of returning to school? Why is it so easy to get caught up in the practical, physical preparations and forget the all-important spiritual preparations?

Kid-Focused-Mama Prayer

Here are a three verses for praying my kids back to school this year. There is no special order to these verses–they are all great choices for Kid-Focused-Mama Prayer !

…walkin a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects,bearing fruit in every good workandincreasingin the knowledge of God…

Colossians 1:10 NASB

• Living in a way that pleases God,  bearing fruit…and increasing in the knowledge of God–this verse covers a lot of ground that parents long for thier children to walk.
• I can’t begin to explain all of the practical and spiritual nuts and bolts of growing up that are covered in this verse. If I really work it, I could even hit good posture with this one. However, there are much better applications for this great verse.
• Let me tell you, when it comes to praying, the apostle Paul is not playing around. This is no mamby-pamby prayer–this is the stuff that men and women of Godly honor are made of.

 These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

John 15:11

• Pray that Christ will be talking to our kids–a lot!– and pray they will hear/discern when Jesus speaks to them. May they know the words Christ speaks!
• Pray that they will know the joy of the Holy Spirit within them–I don’t want them to just know about it. My desire is that they would experience God’s joyful presence within them–joy that is crazy-full. Come to think of it, I  could use more of that myself…
• I pray that they would understand and experience the difference between happiness from pleasures of self-oriented desires and the joy that is the fruit of the Holy Spirit within them.

I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.

John 17:15 NASB

• I would not be doing my Mama-Bear job well if I did not cover this one: Pray for protection from evil…and the influence of the evil one who is active in so many ways.

• I pray for the God-inspired desire to live in the crazy world  yet not be affected by evil.
• Flipping this verse around, I pray that my children would be an active and engaging influence for good, drawing others to want to know God.

Just so you know, I am not done by a long shot. There are more cool things to pray for our peeps. I invite you to join me in praying our kids back to school! We’ll be done when we get done, and that’s all I have to say about that…for now…

Leave a comment and share one thing you are praying for your back-to-school kiddo. Seriously–it is fun to leave comments–try it and see:)