At 8 A.M. on April 12, students, faculty and campus pastors gathered to pray for the people and the purposes of the University of Washington.
Here are their prayers:
A Prayer for the University
by Will Mari, PhD candidate, Dept. of Communication
Lord, we come before You at the start of spring quarter asking for Your mercy, Your grace, and Your peace in the path of learning and knowledge. You Who have called us to the academy, to this particular academy, in this time, are our only source of help, inspiration and joy. You made the molecules, people and ideas we study. You are with us in our labs, our offices, our classrooms. It is a blessing to be here, and we thank You for the opportunity to study and work in this place.
But as we pray for the University of Washington, we pray first for those who govern this community of scholars starting with President Young. Please draw him closer to You, and grant him wisdom and discernment for how to lead this university on the state and regional level. We pray in a similar way for the provost, Ana Mari Cauce, and the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Robert Stacey. I also pray for my department’s chair, David Domke, who asked that we pray for him, that he could lead my colleagues well. Please be with the rest of our divisional deans, our department chairs and our professors.
Please be with those who know You now, that they may be better witnesses for You among their peers and students, both graduate students and undergrads. Please be with those faculty whose faith has faltered, or who feel discouraged and alone. Draw them into community with Your people, and into a relationship with You, and help us to love one another, and strengthen one another, in this place. Please be with our graduate students, our undergraduates, and staff – help us to serve You in whatever capacity You have called us to on this campus.
Not lastly, please bless and protect and encourage those who minister to us in this place.
Be with us in our labs – Lord, please guide our hands. Give us skill and grace to discover.
Be with us in the library – Lord, please guide our thoughts. Give us insight and understanding.
Be with us in the hall, in the office, behind the lectern, in the committee meeting – Lord, please guide our interactions with colleagues and students.
In all of this, help us to honor You, and love You with our hearts, our souls, our bodies, and, most pressingly, with our minds,
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
A Prayer for the Professional Schools
by Thomas O’ Ban, Second Year Law Student
Heavenly Father,
You always give us your grace when we ask for it. Strengthen our faith. Remind us to pray this quarter for our classmates, our professors, our schools. We lift up the graduate schools here at UW, asking your grace on the students and on the teachers, that those learning to grow and manage, to teach, and practice law and medicine would keep in mind the disadvantaged, and hold in their mind a higher goal than their own success. That the students would strive to be compassionate physicians, just attorneys, patient educators, diligent researchers. That their professors would encourage the sort of deep thought and hard work that fashions students into real instruments of change. Thoughtful instruments of change.
Enable your children in these schools, Lord, to live attractive lives–lives worthy of your Son’s sacrifice. Head-turning lives. Thought provoking lives. Magnetic lives. Lives that beg the question: why are you so joyful? Provide opportunities for fellowship, for leadership, for meaningful sacrifice–for professors and students alike in these schools–and help all to press on this spring quarter, diligently. For your glory. Amen.
A Prayer for Faculty
by Lor-Shing Hsu, Sophomore Undergraduate Student
Heavenly Father, I thank you that you are the source of all knowledge and wisdom and you are the good Father that loves to share these things with your children. Lord, we thank you for the mighty and powerful ways you are moving within the faculty. On behalf of the students here at UW, we come to intercede and bless the faculty here at the university. We are all here today to come together to affirm God’s purpose in placing each believing faculty member in the position that they are in and that God has given them authority to influence their work and the community around them.
I pray that you will continue to work alongside them in their teaching, research, and writing and that through the faculty you are revealing more and more of the kingdom and character of God at UW. Yes, we bless every single word spoken and every paper published to bring glory to you Jesus. And thank you Jesus that you are celebrating and full of joy for the work that they do and have accomplished. We proclaim the same joy of the Lord to be their strength through ever obstacle in research, any departmental politics, and types of conflict. May the peace of God that transcends all understanding guide their hearts and their minds.
Lord we also bless the Christian community among the faculty at UW. When there is discouragement, may brothers and sisters come together to build up each other and support through prayer and action. Through fellowship and the Holy Spirit, we pray for continued building of trust and vulnerability. Yes, Jesus we pray against any attempt from the Devil to try to isolate and discourage people away from community and from the love of Jesus.
God I am so excited that your heart for the university is not just for students but for the entire campus, including faculty. As the body of Christ, we bless and send them to be effective witnesses to their colleagues and that as they intercede for their coworkers you will share your deep compassion and unfailing love for the people they are in relationship with. I pray for the communication between their coworkers to be smooth and pray even for conversations that will sprout curiosity around who Jesus really is. Lord through the work of your Holy Spirit and the faith of believers, we pray for a culture change in departmental communities towards a culture that reflects true and trustworthy community, pursuit of reconciliation, and the kingdom of God.
Thank you and we pray all this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
A Prayer for Students
by Dr. Art Peterson, Professor of Biostatistics
Father in heaven, great and awesome God, we acknowledge You as the Creator of heaven and earth, all-powerful, and all loving, who knows and cares for each student here.
We thank you for revealing yourself to us. Thank you for all the magnificent things that we see around us, including the beauty that pervades this campus. Each day, Father, use these things of your creation to bring to our mind these evidences of your glory and your love for each one of us.
We thank you for creating each student in your image, each with an intellect and personality provided by you, and each with the capacity to study and learn about the world that you have created. Thank you for the opportunity that you have given each student to be here, and to study and learn. Help each of us to be thankful each day for this opportunity, and help us give due diligence to redeem the time to study and learn, for our benefit and to your glory.
Father, we thank you for your Son, eternally with You, through whom you created the world, and who upholds the universe by the Word of His power. May we acknowledge in all our study and life here at UW that it is our Lord Jesus who upholds our world, and protects us as we study His world.
Confident in your loving command that we bring our petitions to you, we ask, dear Father:
That you protect each student – body and mind – so precious to you, that each student would be healthy and productive, and attentive to you.
That you give each student diligence in their work, and understanding in their studies. We ask, too, that you give each student a high standard for understanding, so that each would strive to understand thoroughly and deeply.
That you give each student guidance in a choice of major, and boldness to consider changing it a few times. And whenever such guidance cannot be clearly discerned, give each student a confidence that their diligence, together with Your love for each one, will take each student on a productive path, even when we cannot know the future. For we know that You know each of us, and You know the future.
Father, give each student those relationships with others that are supportive of their mission for learning here at UW. And withhold those that are not supportive.
Father, bless the parents, brothers and sisters of each student, and bless others close to them.
Father, keep each student faithful to Your commandments, and keep each student close to You.
Father, keep each student attentive to the needs of other students, and a support to them.
Father, help each student endure the challenges and sufferings of life that they will encounter, including those here at UW, having confidence, as your Word tells us, that You are always with us, and these challenges and sufferings will produce character in us.
Father, place in each student an awareness of you throughout the day, and in their hearts a thankfulness to you, as they encounter all the events, situation and challenges of each day.
Father, we know that you hear our prayers, through the intercession of your Son and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And so, we pray, in thanksgiving, in Jesus’ name. Amen.