Forty Days of Prayer for Education: Day 5

Section 1: Prepare Your Heart

EMPTIED TO BE FILLED

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 

-Matthew 5:3 NKJV

Our focus scripture yesterday enlightened us to the fact that wisdom which comes from above is only obtained through the fear of the Lord.  Since our profession requires that we stay in tune with the latest idea, innovation or research based practice to ensure optimal learning for our students, we plunge (sometimes kicking and screaming) into conferences, PLC's, and degree and certification programs to gain more knowledge. 

If we confuse the aquisition of knowledge with having Godly wisdom, it can lead us down the path where we will begin to lean on our own understanding trusting in what we know versus what God wants us to do. To truly be effective, we have to come to Him as an empty vessel, ready and willing to be led however, wherever, and to whomever His Spirit leads us.  

So, before we begin our school year, before we set up our classrooms and plan our lessons, before we begin our work weeks, before we begin each and every school day, before we begin teaching each subject and every class, before we hold a meeting, before we call a parent, before we go home for the day, before we walk in our homes after work, before we go to bed at night...let's honor Him by acknowledging that we need to be led and guided by His Holy Spirit in every decision of our lives, whether big or small.  (We don't know it all! - smile)

Join with us and pray our prepared prayer on page 13 of the Forty Days of Prayer for Education or pray independently from our focus scripture, Matthew 5: 3 NKJV. 

Afterwards, take some time to just listen for Jesus' voice as you empty yourself by acknowledging your dependence on Him for everything.

Please enjoy this song entitled, "Empty Me" by William Murphy III.

The Lord is with you and you are loved,

Toni

Forty Days of Prayer for Education: Day 4

Section 1- Prepare Your Heart

THE FEAR OF THE LORD

Fear of the Lord is the foundation of wisdom.   

Knowledge of the Holy One results in good judgment.          

- Proverbs 9:10 NLT

Fear:  "respect, reverence, piety"

Every educator has to go through training in order to be qualified to teach or lead.  We learn through college level classes, the advice of our mentors, and more than often from our mistakes.  It goes without saying that the best teacher is often the best student; one who is always learning and eager to listen.  

However, even with all of the book knowledge and "get knocked down, stand back up" experience we may attain, it will never compare to having the wisdom which comes from above.  This God given wisdom only comes from having "respect, reverence, and piety" for God.  

Our prayer for today is for us as educators to develop and maintain the fear of the Lord. Because we are not only His representatives, but also His change agents, we must be mindful of our words, what we look at and what we listen to.  When this is developed in us we will better be able protect what we allow our in our classrooms and schools which can negatively influence our students and coworkers.

Join with us and pray our prepared prayer on page 12 of the Forty Days of Prayer for Education or pray independently from our focus scripture, Proverbs 9:10 NLT. 

Afterwards, take some time to just listen for Jesus' voice as you ask Him to alter what you say, hear and see to show your respect for His sovereignty and holiness .

Please enjoy this song entitled, "Lord, You're Holy", by Prestonwood Baptist Church choir and orchestra.

The Lord is with you and you are loved,

Toni

Forty Days of Prayer for Education: Day 3

Section 1 -Prepare Your Heart

I SURRENDER ALL

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.  Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.     - 1Peter 5:6-7 NIV

Dear Heavenly Father,


Today, we want to express our total need for You. As educators, we understand that we cannot
truly make a difference in the physical or spiritual lives of our students unless we surrender our
lives to You first. 

We lift up before You every desire and need that we have for ourselves and the youths in our lives. We acknowledge that what we believe to be a need or a desire may not actually be in Your will. Therefore, we surrender our thoughts and actions to You.
Before You, we lift up our concept of time. We surrender what we consider needs to be fixed now. We surrender what we believe needs to be accomplished now and accept Your infinite, timeless wisdom and trust You to manifest things at Your release and in Your own time.


We surrender all to You in the name of Jesus, who we declare as Lord over every aspect of our lives,


-Amen

Join with us and pray our prepared prayer on page 11 of the Forty Days of Prayer for Education or pray independently from our focus scripture, 1Peter 5:6-7. Afterwards, take some time to just listen for Jesus' voice as you ask Him to reveal those you need to surrender so as not to impede the activation of His will for you this school year.

 Please enjoy this song by William McDowell entitled, "I Surrender".

The Lord is with you and You are loved,

Toni

Forty Days of Prayer for Education: Day 2

Section 1 -Prepare Your Heart

WE AGREE

 “Take this most seriously: A yes on earth is yes in heaven; a no on earth is no in heaven. What you say to one another is eternal. I mean this. When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I’ll be there.”

Isn't it good to serve such an awesome and loving God?  Over and over in the bible, He shows us evidence of His desire for intimate relationship with mankind, as well as a desire for us to worship Him with others. He created us for relationships and intertwines our lives with countless people like a master weaver to create a beautiful tapestry of life.

Today's prayer focuses on the power of agreement; not just with one another, but the power that comes with being in agreement with Jesus first and foremost.  Our Kingdom assignment as educators links us to many people day after day.  How can we be effective if we don't know His will?  How can we agree if we don't know what we are agreeing about?

Pray with me today "for the finished works of His crucifixion and resurrection to be made manifest in every Kingdom assignment He places before us this school year". Acknowledge His sovereignty and your willingness to be attentive and obedient to His voice. Admit and repent of anything that has hardened your heart to following His ways and receive His forgiveness and guidance.


Join with us and pray our prepared prayer on page 10 of the Forty Days of Prayer for Education or pray independently from our focus scripture, Matthew 18:19-20.  Afterwards, take some time to just listen for Jesus' voice as you ask Him to show you how you can continue praying for unity in your school or school system.


 The Lord is with you and you are loved,

Toni

Forty Days of Prayer for Education: Day 1

Section 1 -Prepare Your Heart

TAKE OUT YOUR SWORD

 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.  Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,  and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.  In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.                                       - Ephesians 6:10-18 NIV

Thank you for joining me today on our first day of prayer for education!  It is imperative that the children of God understand that education is one of the primary avenues of attack that satan (And no, I will not capitalize his name.) uses to turn people away from God. His attack on education became evident when prayer was removed from schools, our children were chided for promoting their religion in anyway shape or form and Jesus' name was stricken from school gatherings for fear of offending others.  

Our children are allowed to be inundated with lessons on evolution and atheism from teachers and text books from from the time they begin school until they graduate from college, while the phrase "one nation under God" rapidly loses its meaning.

My dear educator, we are in a war!  We war in the spirit against the enemy's attack on our schools, our students and their families, our curriculum, finances, health and our sanity. We cannot afford to sit back and wait for things to get better.  We can't even try to make things better on our own.  We need the wisdom, protection and favor of the Almighty God!

Therefore, in today's prayer, we will exalt the One and Only, True, and Living God. We will prepare ourselves to stand with God as we repent of our sins and we will use our unified power to declare and decree those things that need to be bound or loosed. 

Join with us and pray our prepared prayer on pages 8 and 9 of the Forty Days of Prayer for Education or pray independently from our focus scripture, Ephesians 6: 10-18.  Afterwards, take some time to just listen for Jesus' voice.  What does He want YOU to do this school year? 

Armor up ladies and gentlemen.  This means war! 

The Lord is with you and you are loved,

Toni

Forty Days of Prayer for Education- intro

Hi everyone.  Please excuse the goofy look on this video! :-)   Please take a look at it as it explains our journey for the next forty days.  I hope you will join me!

For the next forty days, I will be introducing the prayer focus and scripture reference for each specific day .  Our prayers are divided into seven sections:
1) Preparing our hearts
2) Refocusing and refreshing
3) Kingdom focus
4) You have power
5)For our students
6) For our school system
7) Praising God in advance

While this book can be used at anytime of the year, it's always good to begin any and everything with prayer.  So, contact your coworkers and join together in unified prayer to start this year off the right way!

Click here to download the book

It's the Big Payback!

I just finished putting my seven month old grandson to sleep! 

Whew! 

Today was supposed to be the last day of his summer visit here in America but their flight back to St. Maarten got cancelled.  We didn't find that out until we had arrived all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the airport at O'dark-thirty this morning.  No sweat off our backs. One more day was an unexpected blessing!  

We threw the luggage back in the van, sped home and ate a hearty breakfast.  Unfortunately, as the eyelids of everyone over the age of thirteen around the table began to droop and every final slide of pancakes across puddles of syrup met slowing lips, the little tyke increased in energy. 

SOURCE:musicmookreview.com

My mother in-law and I chuckled at the exasperation on my daughter's face and traded stories of how our kids had defied the moral code of sleeping during decent hours...well my kids did, hers slept from 9-3.  I reminisced about how car rides didn't work for one, closing the door while they went to sleep on their own didn't work for another (she would climb out the crib and find me...creepy #shudders) and how my mom said I deserved everything I got since I happened to be part bat and secretly conspired to suck years from her youth when I was just a wee tot.  So I volunteered to take him with me to drop off his two young aunties at summer camp so everyone could catch forty winks without interruption.

I intended to have a white noise fest and knock him out cold. We headed off down the road, AC pumping and windows down; which didn't turn out as well as I anticipated. Today happened to be trash day and the sanitation truck drivers around here must have been told to leave a Hansel and Gretel trail of garbage juice on all of the roads so they could find their way back to the dump. 

SOURCE:lemurandbushbaby.wikia.com

"How's he doing?" I asked, wrinkling up my nose.   
"He's not sleep yet," my eleven year old said, curling her top lip in disgust.  
Ten minutes later, I dropped them off and headed over to the gas station....  blink, blink, kick, kick, grin, grin.

I looked at him and thought,  "You may be tough, but grandma is the original queen of "I'm up now and I ain't going down without a fight!"

I stared at him through the side window while I pumped gas... blink, blink, kick, kick, grin, grin.  

Hmmm, what's the best way to put down a third generation strong willed baby bat who believes the main objective of every adult is to put him to sleep?

Harps and guitars playing Baptist hymns!!! 

SOURCE:pastorjoe.me

All gassed up now, I look in the back and see the feet still kicking and press play on my iTunes playlist featuring a CD I got from Our Daily Bread.  Needless to say, after smelling the winding trails of lost trash trucks and cleaning plastered gnats off my glasses as I took the looooong way home through my county, the kicking wound down to an occasional head roll and soft snore.  Victory is mine...at least until he wakes up!

While this battle of the wills and quest for utter dominance of babies over mothers seems to be on repeat for my family, it's nothing I would wish as payback on my daughters when they have children of their own. Figuring out how to bribe the Sand Man to increase his dosage on your kids is not a Girl Scout patch that has to be earned by every mother. Just like having the class from H- E double hockey sticks during your first year teaching isn't a badge that new teachers should have to earn either.

As educators, we all know that class lists are either generated by computers or handpicked with fairness or devilish intentions.  Whatever the case may be, it often seems that new teachers get the pick of the liter that everyone is glad they don't have. Then, the seasoned teachers and administrators sit back and rip the new teacher to shreds for not having any classroom management. Really?

SOURCE:mosoulfood.wordpress.com

So, this is what I propose to you who have the heart of Jesus pumping His mercy and grace giving blood through your veins.  Remember Proverbs 11:25 NIV.

A generous person will prosper;

    whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

If you're looking to have a good year, make sure to look for those who are not having one.  Take the lesser experienced teacher or administrator under your wings. You know with God all things are possible.  So, it could be possible that this year your job is to teach, but your assignment is the teacher down the hall.  1 Peter 4: 10 says that each of us is to use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 

As I quoted in a previous blog, you may be the only bible some people ever read.  Therefore, this school year, make it a point to fill your pages with love and truth.

SOURCE: faithgateway.com

The Lord is with you and you are loved,

Toni

P.S.  Don't forget to join me on www.educatordominion.com by clicking on the Home link at the top of this page starting July 27th for our Forty Days of Prayer for Education campaign.  Get a copy of the ebook today! 

P.S.S.     He's up!!!