By Name
OPENING PRAYER:
Lord, you know every name and every story. Bring to mind the people you want me to carry to you, and let my prayers be honest, specific, and full of faith. Amen.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NIV)
This beloved promise was not written to people whose lives were going smoothly. It was written to exiles facing seventy years in a foreign land, people who needed to know God had not forgotten them.
REFLECT:
Jeremiah 29:11 may be one of the most quoted verses in Scripture, and Christian cautioned that we sometimes read it as a promise that God will make our lives easy. In context, it is something deeper: a promise that holds especially true in the difficult, the dark, and the uncertain. God shows his goodness, his plan, and his grace right in the middle of exile. If you are in a valley, he wants you to know that you can have life in the middle of the pain and joy in the middle of the difficult.
Notice what comes right after the promise: call on me, pray to me, seek me. Just a few verses earlier, God told his people to pray for the city that held them captive. Christian called prayer one of the most powerful things we can do for the communities God has given us. And he added that while prayer changes things, one of the most important things it changes is our hearts. It is hard to see someone as an enemy when you are praying for them by name.
So the challenge is beautifully simple. Pick one school. Say its name to God. Pray for a student who is wrestling with who they are and what their future holds. Pray for a teacher who needs to know they are not alone. Pray for an administrator who needs supernatural wisdom. Then let that prayer move your feet toward one person with a word of encouragement.
APPLY:
Write down the name of one school and one person connected to it. Pray for them by name each day this week. Before the week ends, encourage that person directly with a note, a text, a conversation, or a small act of kindness that tells them, “I am for you.”
I WILL STATEMENT:
I will pray for one school by name and encourage one person in it this week.
CLOSING PRAYER:
Father, thank you that your plans for us hold even in exile. I lift up the school and the person you have placed on my heart, by name. Give them hope and a future. Change my heart as I pray, and let my life show them that you are for them. Amen.
PRAYER REQUEST:
Share your prayer request and pray for others.