O Lord, these guys face big changes, and new and very different lives. What can we possibly pray for them that you have not already thought of?
My words here are reflections of my own mix of emotions that so many endings and beginnings together bring to the surface.
As parents we want to pray for their safety, but you, Lord, have never been a safe God. And if indeed we placed them into your hands when they were infants, now as young adults we have even less control over where you will lead them.
We may want to pray for their comfort, but how can we do this, and also pray that you use them for your glory, knowing that those you have used the most have also suffered greatly?
You are a God who throughout history and our own lives does marvelous and spectacular things. But you are also the God of the mundane and supremely subtle. I pray that they may see your answers to their prayers especially when the answers don’t look like they thought they would.
I pray that their faith be truly theirs and not simply an heirloom inherited from their predecessors or peers. That when their faith is challenged by those who hate it they they would know why they believe what they believe and know it well and speak it forth with boldness.
I pray that they learn not to trust on their gifts and abilities, which surely are many and which surely will fail, but on your grace which will not. Teach them that it’s never been all about them, but about you, and you in them, and thru them, you in the world.
That when they are lured by the world, that you would be their magnificent obsession.
I do not pray that you give them wisdom or strength, but that you BE their wisdom and strength; they they find themselves lost in you and be ever more like you.
For you are a loving and faithful God. who loves with wreckless abandon, faithful and firm to the end, wise in all things.
They leave our sight, O Lord, but not yours. Indeed your servant David said:
O Lord, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O Lord.
You hem me in--behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, n you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast. (Ps 139 1-10)
O Lord, that these be not just words in their ears, but the sentiment of their souls and the comfort and assurance of their hearts.
So here they are, Lord. They are yours. Thanks for having lent them to us for this brief time. We commit them to your faithful, relentless, and wholly merciful grip.
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