Prayer
On Tuesday last week (Feb. 5), we set aside our regular schedule for our Day of Prayer. Twice a year, once during the fall semester and once during the spring, the Covenant College community gathers in various groups and settings throughout the day to focus on the ministry of praying – for one another, for the church, for our country, for the world.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 guided our minds and hearts –
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.
At sunrise at Rock City, Psi Chi, our campus chapter of the psychology national honor society, coordinated the gathering. The rest of the morning included prayer among student small groups, faculty and staff departments, and personal prayer and meditation. During our chapel time at 11:00, faculty and staff joined in the chapel for an extended time of corporate prayer led by Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Jeff Hall.
At lunchtime, faculty and staff joined together and with students for conversation and reflection. Throughout the afternoon, in many settings and many ways, Covenant folks read, sang – and, yes, some napped! – during one of the days that I look forward to the most.
The evening brought a student-led time of praise and prayer, ending the day with our focus on God’s glory and purposes for his creation and for us.
Our prayers included wonderful opportunities for praising God for his holiness and beauty and truth and grace; for acknowledgement and confession of our sin; for wonder and thanksgiving for his forgiveness through the cross and his amazing blessings in our lives; and for bringing our requests to him, trusting that, as we give up to him our anxieties, his peace would guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
We prayed for each other – for those struggling with illness, bearing sorrows, fighting temptation, wondering about the future. We prayed for the church – for purity and peace, for refreshment and revival, for perseverance and hope, for the living and active Word to do its work, for effective gospel ministry. We prayed for our country – for the political campaign, for our service men and women in harm’s way in many areas of the world, for justice and righteousness in our land according to the Scriptures. We prayed for the world – for peace, for humility among world leaders, for the millions of victims of evildoers, for the powerful gospel through God’s people to shine the light of Jesus Christ in all dark places.
As we awoke the next morning, we were alerted to the realities of the world in which we live, and of our comprehensive dependence on the Lord God of the universe, to whom and in whose presence we had prayed in so many ways the previous day. The tornadoes that raced across Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky, causing the deaths of more than fifty people and heavy damage, including at our sister institution, Union University in Jackson, TN, reminded us of our calling: to give witness to our awesome God who rules and reigns, who leaves nothing undone that he would do, who allows nothing that he does not somehow oversee, and who graciously and often mysteriously works all things for his own glory.
On Friday and Saturday, we held our Parents Weekend, when about a hundred parents visited their daughters and sons at the College. During an open session for questions, as we discussed the challenge of encouraging spiritual growth in our students, I was compelled to remind us all that, with all the programs and opportunities and relationships that can so helpfully serve that purpose, it is God himself who captivates minds and hearts, whose Spirit works in the deepest caverns of the soul, whose Word always accomplishes what he intends, and whose purpose for his people is for good and not evil. And so our purest, highest charge is to pray that God would do it – in our three sons, two of whom are at Covenant, and in all our children during these hugely important years.
In the same way I invite all of you who read this blog to bow your heads and hearts right now – and pray. Pray for the College, that we would be faithful and diligent and effective in this crucial task of education and preparation – for students, faculty, staff, board, administration. Pray for the church that we would be continually reformed according to God’s Word and revived to fulfill his gospel purpose for us by his grace. Pray for our nation in such times as this. And pray for the world, and particularly for the movement of God’s truth and Spirit in bringing sinners to repentance and faith, in protecting his people in dangerous places, in gathering his chosen from all nations.
Of course our setting aside two days for prayers during the academic year does not imply that we don’t pray the rest of the time! Such specific and intensive times of prayer remind us of the Scriptures’ call to pray continually in all circumstances, with humility and gratitude and hope. In praise, confession, thanksgiving, and request, may we be people of prayer, knowing and loving and trusting our God who answers all our prayers according to his perfect and merciful purposes.
Published on 12 Feb 2008 at 8:18 am. 2 Comments.
Niel,
On behalf of the Parents Council and all the Parents that attended Parents Weekend thank you for your time, heart and uplifting words at the Fireside Chat. We are blessed to have you (and Kathleen) at Covenant and lift you up in prayer as you seek to do God’s will and strive to shepherd Covenant College. Ora et labora!
Drew Jelgerhuis on 19 Feb 2008 at 9:05 pm.
Dear President Nielson, Faculty, and Staff,
Just to let you know that my wife, Miriam, and I give heartfelt thanks to our Lord for your labor of love to our daughter, as well as the other students. We so appreciate that the Kingdom of God is the first and foremost agenda of Covenant. We consistently pray for the “thrusting out of laborers into the harvest” from the college, and for all concerned at the school. Heb.13:20-21
Paul Nortker on 24 Feb 2008 at 7:09 pm.