[Please join me in praying for the Church on Sundays this year.]
“I remember standing in the hospital room, holding my son for the first time, and being overwhelmed with emotions about what my life would look like moving forward. I had no idea how to be a father because I didn’t have one to mimic throughout my childhood, but I knew for certain that I didn’t want to be my father.
“As my son is about to pass the age threshold into adulthood later this year, I understand what children want the most from their parents: They want consistent effort.
“I believe that sometimes parents get caught up in providing their children with as many material items as possible and feel pressured to take them to extravagant places, but at the heart of every child, they just want parents who are trying their best and care about their wellbeing.
“My son was never curious about whether his father loved him, because we say it to each other every time we talk to each other, and I show it with my effort to be involved in his life. He understands his father isn’t perfect and might fall short in some ways, but despite my flaws, to him, I’m still the greatest father in the world.” – by Adam B. Coleman*
Heavenly Father,
Thank you for being the Greatest Father in the World, who created us and loves us. Thank you for the wisdom, understanding, and insight you give us when we seek you. Thank you for being a Father and protector for the fatherless. Today we pray that the men you have blessed with the title of “father” would be men after your own heart, men who have a strong confidence in the fear of the Lord, and men who hold fast to your Word and your teachings. We pray for men who would like to be fathers but aren’t yet, for dads who do not know their children, for fathers whose babies were aborted, and for single dads that are raising children. We pray for your supernatural grace, wisdom, mercy, and peace to be upon them. We pray for “everyday” dads who expend consistent effort to bless and provide material, emotional, and social support for their children. We pray that these men – and especially the men in your Church – would be men who provide spiritual leadership to their physical and spiritual offspring. We pray the hearts, minds, souls, and spirits of all men who father children would be attuned to the Holy Spirit. May they interact with their children in the ways you want them to, and may they have no greater joy than to know that their children are walking in your Truth. We pray all this in Jesus’s name. Amen.
“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (3 John 1:4 ESV)
“In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge.” (Proverbs 14:26 ESV)
“Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching. When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother, he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth. …”” (Proverbs 4:1-9 ESV)
“Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation. God settles the solitary in a home; he leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.” (Psalm 68:5-6 ESV)
“And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” (Malachi 4:6 ESV)
*https://www.theepochtimes.com/from-neglect-to-nurturing-a-fathers-day-transformation_5335727.html