“You won’t believe how God just answered our prayers!” I sent this message to our Faculty Commons leaders after our monthly gathering where we pray for our campus and students.
That morning after reading and reflecting on Psalm 3:3, “But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head,” we were encouraged to praise God and intercede on behalf of our students. The Spirit immediately brought to my mind a student I received an email from earlier that morning.
Waiting At My Office Door
Tyler* was struggling to keep up in class due to a death in the family. I prayed for God to bless him and that God would be “a shield about him and the lifter of his head.”
After the prayer meeting was over, I walked back to my office for my weekly office hours. To my surprise, Tyler was waiting for me at my office door! We sat down and made a plan for him to get caught up on course material. Before he left my office, I told him I was sorry for his loss and I had been praying for him since receiving his email. I shared that as a Christian, I believe that God sees us and cares for us in hard times.
Praising God For His Kindness
After he left my office, I could not help but praise God for his kindness in prompting me to pray.
Had I not just spent almost an hour in prayer for this student, I would not have been as inclined to have a spiritual conversation.
As a professor, I am often left wondering how I can best care for students academically as well as spiritually. The task feels overwhelming and unachievable. But Tyler’s story reminds me how simple, yet powerful, prayer is.
Witnessing prayer’s impact on my students, while also experiencing how it prepares me for spiritual conversations, has motivated me to continue praying intentionally for my students each semester.
