Back to school they go, with sun-kissed shoulders. It’s Harvest time. And what better way to send them off than with a prayer, lifted up high to the King of the Harvest – for they are the fruit of our love and labour.

Dear Lord, We humbly ask that the year ahead is filled with great gobs of learning and growing and believing. Go before them, we ask. Prepare the way for our children this school year. Give them ears to hear and minds to perceive, all that You have in store for them. Give them joy in Your presence during their days with teachers and friends, and fill them with a sense of Your nearness on their campus’. Be the fire that burns bright before them, and their rearguard too. Hem them in, on the right and to the left, above their heads and beneath their precious feet. And when they fear, for we all have weak moments, may they find You strong and sure, ever present.

And bring them Godly friends to do this sweet life with, and mentors to pour into them. Yes, give them a cloud of witnesses to point their hearts to You. During this school year, by the power of Your Holy Spirit at work in their lives, raise them up into the image of Your Son. Let this year be a profound page in the story of their faith lives. Grow them up, just as Jesus grew, in wisdom, stature, and favor with You, Oh Lord, and with all people. And do not give them too much popularity that they would forsake You, nor too little that they might curse You, but place in their lives just what they need beyond the safe haven of our home, to grow into the men and women that You created them to be.

We trust You to plant faith and cultivate righteousness in the year ahead. Grant us the wisdom we need to join you in the Harvest.

-Amen.

Now for the moms who are sending your children off to preschool, kindergarten, grade school, middle school, high school, college… God has a great and glorious Harvest planned for your life beyond the field that is your children. In the quiet autumn moments, with your dear ones settled back in school, let me lift you up as well, asking the Lord to speak His inspiration into your heart this fall.

Lord, we thank You for the great privilege of raising our children to know and love you. They are our high calling – the first generation to follow us into faith and out into the world. But we know you’ve promised to love on 1,000 generations through the lives of righteous men and women. And so we ask, as our children head to school, that You would fill our minds with dreams, our hearts with love, and our lives with opportunity to plant seeds of faith out into the world.

This is truly our God-sized Dream, because it’s Your dream for humanity. That everyone would have a chance to hear of your great love for them, to believe it, and be saved. “For the Harvest is great but the workers are few.”

This Harvest time, dear Lord, make us Your laborers. As our children walk to school, give us vision and the courage we need to journey out into the fields. 

– Amen

Shared By: Wendy Brunner