This summer, we’re sharing prayers for and by Christian scholars in our network. We hope this is a chance for readers to connect with each other and with God, to be encouraged, and to pray together. May this series remind us of how the church is connected across time and space in the love of Jesus Christ our Lord. Today’s prayer is by Johnny Wei-Bing Lin, a member of the Emerging Scholars Network and a Senior Lecturer of Computing and Software Systems (CSS) at U. of Washington Bothell.
Dear Father,
Thank You so much for another academic year gone by and getting us past the finish line! And thanks so much for the Summer, for these months between last year’s sprint and the sprint to come.
Thank You for the chance to rest, if only a little, during these months. Thank You the Summer months are calmer and less hectic on our campuses. Thank You for the chance to stand in shorter lines at the cafeteria or food court, for the chance to hear the wind blow and birds sing because there is less activity, for the chance to play volleyball games on the lawns or take walks through the gardens or arboretums or go out into the mountains on a field project. Thank You for the sounds of renewal and repair, whether those are made by nature or are made by our colleagues in facilities working on maintenance projects. Thank You for the chance to recover.
With this time to rest, help us to take the time to look outside the windows (if we have one) of our offices and laboratories to be reminded of the larger world you’ve made. Help us to remember how that larger world connects to the smaller one we have the privilege to study in our reading rooms, our labs, and at our desks. Help us to see a fresh glimpse of Your love and power working in the world You’ve made, that we would have an opportunity to worship You in our work—in writing a line of code, translating a sentence, making a calculation, analyzing a poem—in a new and joyful way, and that that worship of You would connect us more
closely to our colleagues, our brothers and sisters in our churches, and our neighbors around us.
Finally, please help us to balance our rest with our responsibilities. Help us to focus when we need to focus, help us to be diligent when we need to be diligent, help us to write when we need to write, and help us to have courage and initiative to talk to people at conferences if we’re introverted and would prefer to curl up with a book.
Thank You again for the rhythm of the academic year and for the time of Summer.
In Jesus’ strong and restful Name, Amen.
Johnny is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Computing
Education in the Computing and Software Systems Division of the U. of
Washington Bothell and an Affiliate Professor of Physics and Engineering
at North Park U. He is the author of the textbook A Hands-On
Introduction to Using Python in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
and the environmental ethics book The Nature of Environmental
Stewardship. Johnny is a past Executive Council President of the
American Scientific Affiliation, a network of Christians in the sciences.
He has three children (Timothy, James, and Christianne) and one wife
(Karen) who keep him busy and happy, not necessarily in that order.
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