7 Prayers That Work

Lord Jesus, the Rabbi, You were a teacher. You know how hard it is to present truth and get listeners to hear and understand it. You were creative and interesting and inviting and challenging. Make me like that, whether I'm a parent, a teacher, a supervisor, a manager, or business owner. I'm teaching someone about you every day just by being myself. And I'm learning from someone every day. (Or at least I should be.) I want to seek you and learn from you first and foremost. I want to long for you and miss you when I avoid you. Make me a learner first, and a teacher second. I want my life to count. I want to help someone grow as a person and as a child of God. Infuse me with humility, persistence, wonder, patience, and compassion. I wait on you and listen to you. Thank you. In Jesus' name, Amen. "Your hands have formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands." Psalm 119:73

Dear Father, Thank you for my children. Thank you for their imperfections and their struggles. Thank you for walking through life with them, speaking into their lives, using every hardship and every conflict to re-orient them to you. And you don't hurry or panic when they don't learn the lesson the first or second or hundredth time. You keep loving and showing yourself to them by bringing influencers across their paths, by painting nature all around them, by making your Word alive and powerful in their hearts and minds. Thank you for being their God, as much as you are my God. You have a future and a hope for them, a destiny of your design. You will use all their mistakes, all their experiences, all my failings and my influence to mold them into the people you want them to be. I am in awe of your goodness and your sovereignty. Why do I worry? My children were your children first, your perfect, unique creations, an expression of yourself, with ...