Editor’s Note: The following prayer was offered by John D. Meade, Professor of Old Testament at Midwestern Seminary, as the benediction at the spring 2026 chapel convocation.

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Our Father and our God, we come before you today to ask for your blessing on these students and the semester ahead. I pray for our students that you grant them the joy of discovery in their classes, that some lesson or significant nuance from your Word would fascinate and captivate each of their minds. Indeed, your Word says that it is the glory of God to conceal a matter and it is the glory of kings to search out a matter. May that be true of our students this semester as they read, research, write, preach, and present in their classes and seminars.

But even above learning, O God, bless these students with progress in sanctification this semester. I pray they would put to death the old man with all its sinful desires and put on the new man created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. When tempted to sin against you, may they choose you and the pleasures that are at your right hand forevermore.

Finally, I pray, O Lord, that you would continue to use this faculty and staff in significantly instrumental ways in the lives of these students as this institution continues to train and fashion ministers of Christ for service in the church and in the marketplace. Without you energizing our work, O Lord, we know that we work in vain. So, God, bless our efforts and establish the work of our hands in 2026.

Thank you for your faithfulness to us, O Lord, and it is in the matchless name of Christ Jesus, we pray. Amen.