School supplies

 

 

The beginning of the new school year always means the gathering of school supplies, for what is needed to navigate through the halls and schedules and lessons.

We send out our children and grandchildren with what is necessary.  Don't forget your lunch.  Where are your shoes?  Do you have your homework?  But amidst the notebooks and pens and devices, one more thing is most needful of all.  

The morning that school started a couple of weeks ago, in the midst of getting ready and leaving for the first day, one of our daughters and her husband gathered their four school-age children in the kitchen and prayed a blessing over them:

It is the LORD

    who goes before you.

He will be with you;

He will not leave you

       or forsake you.

Do not fear

   or be dismayed.

               Deuteronomy 31. 8

We would not think to send forth our kids without their needed supplies, but what about praying a blessing over them?

The Old Testament is filled with blessings spoken over comings and goings.  In our days, we rarely acknowledge with spoken blessings those times of heading into the unknown or facing the known.  How differently would we navigate what is before us if we went forth claiming His blessing in it, over it, and through it, even in what we do not know or expect?

Nothing is more powerful over fear and nervousness than knowing the LORD is with you. 

May we go forth the same into this season, not just claiming a verse, but being blessed by the Word of God.  Not just a reminder of who He is, but the steadfast promise of what His faithfulness means in real life.  God does not say there will be no bumpy places or really hard stuff, because in actuality we live in a broken world. But He is with us. That is truth we can stake our lives on.

We can daily pray this blessing over our children of every generation, big and small, grown and growing, a promise of which cannot be outgrown.

But we too can go forth in the reality of God's blessing.

Don't just recite those verses.

Pray it.

Practice it.

Live it out loud. 

"Do not fear.  I am with you."   What does that look like today?