Homeschool Prayer Challenge Week 9: Strength for Weary Homeschool Moms

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We’re 9 weeks into our series on prayer for our homeschools. So thankful you are joining me! You can learn more about the series here. We’ll pray about a new area of our homeschool journey each week and dig into God’s Word with daily devotional reflections. Find this week’s free printable at the end of this post.

In my non-homeschool-mama-homeschool-blogger life, I’m a fitness instructor. I absolutely love it. I teach Les Mills Body Pump at my local gym and have a lot of “motivational phrases” I love to use to encourage participants when they’re near the end of their limits. One I tend to use often is:

“Don’t quit! Do just one more than you think you can – that’s when you get stronger!”

It’s true that pushing our muscles to that point of fatigue can help us grow. It’s also true that so often, our physical strength might be limited by our own thoughts and motivation. I was reflecting this week on how that applies to other areas of life, such as when we feel weak, weary and inadequate in our homeschooling.

What do we do on days we are just…done? When we feel that we have little strength left?

How do we gain the strength we need to grow and, somedays, just keep moving forward?

Waiting on the Lord

Homeschool moms, I know that there can be days where everything works in perfect harmony. The kids all get along beautifully, the lessons are learned well, and all housework is completed.

However, not every day is perfect (in fact, most aren’t). We all struggle with daily frustrations, and unfortunately, try to use our own means to power through. When we do this, we can so easily lose strength, motivation, drive, and wonder…why does everything feel so hard?

The truth is, we can’t rely on our own strength. Everyone has a breaking point – why do we so often let ourselves get to that point instead of realizing that we can access the very strength we need to carry out God’s will for us and our kids?

There is some direction for this given in Isaiah 40:29-31:

He gives power to the faint,
    and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
    and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint.

This passage says that we are to wait for the Lord to renew our strength. Wait for our all-powerful creator who never grows weary like us, who never loses strength, who is limitless.

But what exactly does it mean to “wait for the Lord”? And how does waiting make us stronger?

Purposeful Waiting

Waiting in this context doesn’t mean just sitting around, doing nothing.

Many times when we “wait”, we are in anticipation of what’s to come. Waiting in line for an amusement park ride, waiting for the birth of a baby, waiting for a vacation or a fun event. When we wait, we look eagerly to the future, to something we know is going to happen.

In the Isaiah passage, wait translates to “look for, hope, expect”. When we wait for the Lord, we express confident, patient trust in Him, that He will carry out His will to completion (Philippians 1:6).

And it’s in our waiting that the Lord refuels us and renews our strength.

Strength in Waiting

If people could get stronger just by sitting around and passively waiting to get fit, I would be out of a job as a fitness instructor for sure!

Likewise, we can’t access God’s strength if we don’t put forth effort: if we don’t seek Him, don’t go to Him in prayer, and fail to trust in His promises.

Instead, when we do these things on a daily basis, God will move in our lives. We will be stronger because we will have more peace and security. We will find rest in the truth that we don’t have to be strong on our own, but that God’s supernatural strength can take care of anything we encounter.

Waiting in Action

In Psalm 27, David is a great example of what it looks like to wait on the Lord. In this passage, he shows great confidence and trust in God’s protection and that he will be delivered from his troubles.

David is not afraid because he trusts the Lord to be his strength (verses 1-3). He desires to dwell with God all the days of his life (verse 4), and seeks Him in prayer and worship. He ends his beautiful proclamation of faith with:

David trusts, seeks the Lord, worships and prays. He is expectant that God will be there for him because of who He is and what He has promised. This is what waiting on the Lord should look like for our lives as well.

It is crucial that we admit our need and draw our strength from the one whose strength will never fail. This means that we need to read God’s Word daily; we need to be still and spend quality time with Him in prayer, seeking His will for our lives.

How often do we charge ahead without taking this precious time? Or, we do “all the right things”, but still rely on other avenues to renew us? God certainly provides means for us to refuel and refresh, but we must not forget and praise Him that HE is the source of our strength.

Ask yourself this week: Am I trusting? Am I seeking? Praying? Expecting? Where am I drawing my strength from?

Spiritual Discipline

I encourage you this week to grab the printables below and spend some time each day devoted to fellowship with our faithful, good, and limitless Father. Seek Him first. Pray continually. Admit that you can’t rely on yourself anymore and wait expectantly for his perfect strength to gracefully renew you.

Heavenly Father,

The homeschool days can feel so long, and I often feel weak and inadequate. My strength is low because I try to do it all on my own, instead of trusting in you for my every need.

Forgive me for trying to rely on myself, and not enough on you and your limitless power. You know the big picture of my life and can accomplish what I can not. Teach me to trust, seek, and wait on you to renew my strength!

I need your love, strength, and presence in my life and my homeschool. Be present in my homeschool this week; help me look to your Word draw on the strength you have promised to those who wait on you. Enable me to teach my children with endurance and not grow weary. Lead me to rest in the understanding that your almighty power never fails, and that only in you do we have the comfort of true peace and strength.

In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen

It’s been a few weeks, but I’ve also created another beautiful wallpaper for your phone, to help you keep this week’s scripture verse at your fingertips. Click here to grab it!

Join the Challenge

Finally, if you want to join in on the challenge from the very beginning, make sure to sign up below, and you’ll receive a printable prayer and journal pages each week, right to your inbox. Join in any time, and you’ll start the following Monday with Week #1!

Simply click below, follow the instructions, and you’re in.

You’ll also be signed up for the Blessed Homeschool Newsletter and receive my FREE Scripture Memory Cards (designed to complement the prayer challenge) as a bonus.

I would love to hear from you: How do you remind yourself to lean on God for His strength during a tough homeschool day or week? Drop a line in the comments below!

Related Posts

• The Best Lesson You Can Teach in Your Homeschool
• 5 Simple Things I’ve Learned About Discipline In Our Homeschool
• How to Handle Worry in Homeschooling

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