“I will keep your law continually forever and ever. And I shall walk in a wide place for I have sought your precepts.”
– Psalm 119:44–45
As we are praying God’s word for each other in the middle of this pandemic, and I encourage you to continue to send in these prayer requests at radical.net/prayerrequests, just specific ways we can pray for you, your family, people you know, your church, or community, your country during this time. I want to read today from something Hannah and Scott sent in and there’ve been others like it.
Many college students experienced abrupt changes in an already uncertain time of life. Let’s ask the Lord to bless them with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
Praying for College Students During this Season
But Scott said, “Please be in prayer for college students during this time. As a graduating senior it’s disappointing and difficult missing out on graduation, as well as having to say goodbye to close friends abruptly. Many of my friends tell me about conflict at home, and the difficulties of adjusting to living with parents and siblings, who may be insensitive to their disappointments, and strange schedules. Also, my campus ministry has had to shift meetings online. It’s become much harder to reach out to unbelieving students from campus. So, please pray that we would still be able to spread the hope of Christ to despairing, discouraged, unbelieving students.”
Hannah, likewise, writes, “Please pray for graduating college seniors. In addition, to feelings of grief and sadness for having to say goodbye earlier than expected, so many college students have no home to go back to, or are left unsure about what to do, and where to go. We are looking for jobs and there seem to be none. Please pray for wisdom, provision and patience as we wait that God would open the right doors, right job opportunities at the right time.” So, as I read that from Scott and Hannah, and others who have submitted similar prayer requests, and then I read Psalm chapter 119 verse 44, so just picturing all the plans that graduating seniors had for these last couple of months for graduation, for what lies ahead, and how so many of those plans have just fallen apart, in many cases, completely.
Psalm 119:44–45 Celebrates the Hope in God’s Plans for Us
Then, I read Psalm 119:44–45, “I will keep your law continually forever and ever. And I shall walk and a wide place for I have sought your precepts.” God, I pray these verses specifically over Hannah and Scott, any other graduating senior who’s listening to this right now, who feels like the wide place that they were in, like moving toward graduation, the celebration, culmination of all this work, the opening of new doors and wide opportunities.
God, as those things have not turned out the way that they hoped or, certainly, longed for. God, we pray that they would trust all the more during these days in Your law, Your word, Your truth, that which they have learned in even greater ways from You than in all education, they will know that their feet are in a wide place, that the future before them is wide open for the display of Your glory through their lives.
Praying Over College Students as they Graduate
So God, we just pray that over them. That they would see a wide open future of walking with You. They will know that they walk in a wide place because they have sought Your precepts and trusted in You forever and ever. That nothing can steal that from them. So God, please grant them, I don’t want in any way to minimize the disappointment, the emotions, the challenges that they’re walking through.
And I so appreciate even Scott saying, “Not even just for me, but for people I’ve wanted to share the gospel with, have been working to share the gospel with on my campus that I’m not able to share the gospel with in the same way,” God, please bless Scott, Hannah, their influence on other students even during these days who may not know You. And God, we pray over Scott and Hannah and all who know You, who are trusting in You that they would know they’re walking in a wide place.
Psalm 119:44–45 Praises God for His Promise of the Future
The future ahead though there is so much unknown in this world right now, there is so much known in Your word that they can rest on, lean on. So, may they press into it all the more. May they walk humbly, faithfully with You into unknown days ahead, unique challenges, even unique disappointments. But God, we pray that they would know the constancy, sufficiency, joy, satisfaction that’s found in Your precepts and Your law, and the wide place that is set before them as they walk with You into the future. God bless them in the days to come, bless them with every spiritual blessing in Christ, every spiritual blessing flowing from Your word, and use their lives exponentially in the days ahead for the glory of Your name, and for their good. We pray this over these graduating seniors in Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
