I had dinner recently with a wise, dear friend. He works
with youth & offered me an assessment I had not heard before. Netted out,
his hypothesis is that as the father in a family goes, so goes the rest of the
home. If the father is away all the time, angry often, doesn’t love his wife,
and/or doesn’t treat his wife well in front of his children, well, then there’s
trouble. Kids grow up with things wrong
in critical areas.
I thought quite a bit about what he said, and which of those
apply most to me. It was a humbling period of self-reflection.
I know I don’t have the strength, wisdom, persistence, and
myriad other things I need to raise good kids. The only chance I’ve got is to
lean into my faith, to get these things from God. For me, this starts with
prayer. Yet for most of my life, prayer was something I did half-heartedly.
Sure, I did it before meals, and foxhole prayers when life got scary.
Gradually, I did it in the mornings occasionally, or just before falling asleep
at night. But it wasn’t a focus, a priority, a value.
There were two big things that changed my approach to
prayer, making it essential. I was scared straight.
The first was a culmination, an awakening of sorts. After
our first child was born, I found myself besieged right before I fell asleep
with potent fear of horrific things happening to my son. This went on for some
time and one day I read the story of Martin Luther being awakened by the Devil
in the middle of the night. Luther, realizing who it was, replied, “Oh, it’s
only you” and went back to sleep. I was reading one of John Eldredge’s books,
learning about spiritual warfare and the value of prayer. I tried praying
against those fears at night, exposing them for what they were, and you know
what? It worked!
The power of prayer really came home for me a year or so
later. To make a long story short, I felt like evil had its hooks in me, and it
rattled me to my core. I got past my reluctance to as for help, asking my wife
& friends to pray for me. I prayed for days, deeply disturbed in my soul,
asking God for wisdom & perspective. What I realized in the midst of this
was I had too few verses of scripture in memory. Put another way, I knew of
the armor of God, but had no idea what it was, how to put it on, what it was
about. I did not want to be caught so unprepared again.
So I began praying Eldredge’s daily
prayer. It seems long & involved. And it is; check out the references
to scripture. And I’ve realized that it is an insurance policy, a shield in the
daily spiritual warfare that surrounds us all. I know on the days when I don’t
make the time for prayer in the morning that I should expect things to go
haywire. Prayer in the morning isn’t a cure-all, a guarantee of smooth sailing.
It does ground me, help me get closer to God, and practice covering my family
and myself in prayer. And it provides me with a touchpoint with God, a place to
evaluate how things are going in my walk with Him.
Are you walking with God daily? Are you in a community of
men who can tell you of the good they see in you—and challenge you to live the
life God intended for you? Are they lifting you up in prayer, and challenging
you to do the same for them, yourself, and your house?
