A Prayer for Students

Northwestern College

Baccalaureate

9 May 2014

O God, gracious and wise, consider these students, your servants, your sons and daughters, beloved in Christ before the foundation of the world.

Protect them, encourage them, sustain and uphold them for the sake of your Son our Savior. Jesus, light of the world: may they see through your eyes. Jesus, Word of God spoken as flesh: may your way become theirs.

Bless them with a joyful and living faith: not fragile, not rigid, but a deep, resilient trust in Jesus, the truth around whom all truths turn. A faith that welcomes the world God so loves. Let them embrace that world’s need as their own. Let them find Jesus in all who are lost, hungry, wounded, judged, condemned, broken. Give them the Spirit of Christ, who did not hold back, but went forth, and gave himself.

Trouble them when they are too sure, but strengthen them when their confidence fades. Ever-faithful Lord, great in mercy, humble and relentless in love, even when they forsake you, pursue them, bear them up, and restore them to you.

Make seekers of the settled. Give them courage to go the hard way. Lead them beyond themselves to what’s difficult and strange, to where you wait, Lord of all, ever new.

Endow them with a holy curiosity, discontent with what’s pat, shallow, safe and false. Teach them to love the questions as well as the answers. Show them the seams where things don’t fit, the questions they were afraid to ask. Guide them to the places where you, God of wonder, have more to teach them.

Stand with them in trouble. Be their beacon in uncertainty. Within their doubt, hold them fast, their unseen anchor. Beyond whatever darkness they endure, you their true hope. Past all loss, you their true love.

Provoke them, prod them, surprise and shock them. Gentle Lord: soften their hearts, sharpen their minds, liberate their imaginations. Let them never forget they have nothing to fear: Christ is risen! Free but securely held, their names written on the palm of your hand. Now called, now sent out, forever blessed, forever beloved.

Amen