Go: A 4-Part Prayer for My Boys

I’m trudging through a month of good-byes as my two oldest (and their friends, whom I also love) leave for college. Each morning I pause to listen to Moses speak to the children of Israel as he, too, says good-bye.

And I wonder, how do you say good-bye to your children?

My heart alternately weeps and rejoices with them–these Israelites sitting in the sand–because their story is my story. We both look back and look forward, without looking up. So we settle and listen as we wait in this wilderness beyond the Jordan.

Moses paints a picture of the giants in the land beyond the Jordan, but then reminds his children of their greatest weapon:

“Do not be in dread or afraid of them. The LORD your God who goes before you will himself fight for you, just as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes, and in the wilderness, where you have seen how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you went until you came to this place. Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the LORD your God, who went before you in the way to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, in fire by night and in the cloud by day, to show you by what way you should go.” (Deut. 1:29-33)

He instructs the people to go, because God goes before them. Don’t be afraid of the giants, he commands.

In my thirst for reassurance, I drink in the verbs that describe what God does and has done: goes, fights, carried, went, seeks, shows.

I decide to write a letter to my boys, from the words of Moses, which are the words of the Lord, in this book—my favorite book—of Deuteronomy.

It will have four parts, four letters, all spelling one word. It is my prayer for them.

The first letter is G.

And it stands for GO.

And I now am ready, ready to let my boys go.

Go, because the Lord your God goes before you. He will himself fight for you. You have seen how he carried you, all the way that you went until you came to this place.

You have seen how he went before you to seek you out a place to pitch your tents, to show you by what way you should go.

So go. I love you but He loves you more. I entrust you to Him, again and again and again.

Hope and Be.Longing