Thank you - to Teachers and Schools

Thank you - to teachers and schools.

(Number eight in a series of eight prayers.)

Loving Heavenly Father, so much of our world involves teaching, and so much of your word is the best teaching ever! 

Just as each tree at this autumn season has its own beauty, each student has their particular abilities. Thank you that you want us to learn!

Thank you for students, for teachers, and for schools. Thank you for universities, publishers of books, and school boards. Without educational facilities, our life would revert to an age when disease, famine, local wars, and ignorance dominated societies. Even today, we can look at vast areas of the world and witness how much basic education is needed.

Yet, Lord, where gratitude exists in my heart for education in general, I wrestle with trends in our society that are harmful. Many young people are not learning well during this Covid-19 epidemic. A large percentage is being left behind. Several reasons are causing difficulties for students. Depression and social isolation are happening during social distancing.

Simultaneously, many educators in classrooms across our nation do not have a foundation built upon the Judeo-Christian heritage. Secularism and its many offshoots have led wide swaths of our society astray. The power of educational institutions has grown so that the message of Jesus Christ is being stamped out in many quarters. Often this happens deliberately. Religious freedoms are being threatened.

Lord, you call us to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Messiah, was the greatest teacher who ever walked this earth. His words changed men and women back then and continue to bring faith, hope, and love in our age. May the words of our Savior penetrate the hearts and minds of all learners. 

"At that time, Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, 'I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.'" Luke 1021-22