With Father's Day approaching, I will repeat here a Father's Day prayer I wrote last year and posted on my Caleb's Publishing website. (new as of June 13, 2008 see also Prayer for Fathers Day 2008.)

Father's Day Prayer

by Philip Hartman

Father's Day 2005

God, I thank you on this Father’s Day for all the many blessings you have given me.. Thank You for:

• Your Son Jesus and the sacrifice He made for me,
• my wife and my two daughters,
• for the other family and friends that love and care about me,
• for my good health and the good health of my family,
• for my career and Your provision for my family’s financial
  needs,
• for today’s special moments like catching a butterfly with
  my 8-yr old,
• for the love, care, and good example set by my own father when I
  was growing up.
  

God, I confess that I am not always the best husband and father I should be. I pray for Your forgiveness and grace.

I pray that You will bless me in my role as father. Give me wisdom and patience. Grow me into the father You need me to be for my two daughters. Help me be someone they know will always be there for them.

I pray that You will bless me in my role as husband. Again, I pray for wisdom and patience. Grow me into the man my wife needs me to be. Protect my marriage from evil influences. Grow us together as a couple that will be an example for our daughters and a good Christian witness to those around us.

Help me discern Your will for my life and the life of my family. Where I need to take a stand for You and Your purposes, I pray that You will make Your will obvious and supernaturally enable me to do what You need me to do. Where I need to shut up or back off, I pray that You will
convict me of this and give me peace as I turn it all over to You. Build me up where I am weak. Help me develop the spiritual gifts You have given me for Your service.

I pray that You will bless me in my role as provider. I ask for Your continued blessings on my work life. Help me honor You in all that I do. Help me be a good witness in the workplace. God,
there is much uncertainty in the world right now with many people losing their jobs. Help me trust in Your provision for my family. Where Your provision is where I am already, help me be the best that I can be. When turmoil is coming and a change is needed, I pray that You will
alert me in some way, prepare me for the change, and enable me to make the changes I need to in order to take full advantage of Your provision.

I pray that You will bless my wife in her role as mother of our children. Giver her continued good health, wisdom, energy and patience. Grow her into the mother You need her to be. Give her deep joy from motherhood despite all the hard work.

I pray that you will bless her in her role as my wife. Grow her into the woman You need her to be for me. Strengthen her commitment and resolve to our marriage. Remove all walls that separate us and bring us together intimately in a way that lasts a lifetime.

I pray that you will work mightily in the lives of my two daughters. Use Your Holy Spirit to draw them close to You. Give them a hunger to seek You. I pray that they will grow up happy and healthy. I pray that You will provide friends, teachers, Sunday School teachers, youth group leaders, and coaches who will be good influences on them at the very moment they will be tempted. Protect them from peer pressures to stray away from the path You have planned for them. If it is Your will that they should marry, I pray that at this very moment You are preparing a godly young man for them who will love them and remain committed to them always. I also lift up to You the parents of these young men. Help them raise their sons to be great fathers for my future grandchildren if that is part of Your plan as well.

This I ask in the name of Your Son, Jesus.

Amen.

Copyright © 2005 by Philip Hartman and Caleb's Publishing - All Rights Reserved

God, Make Me More Like Joseph

At this time of year when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, I want to remember the great example of Joseph as a husband to the Virgin Mary and as the earthly father to Jesus.

When Joseph got the news that Mary was pregnant (and he knew he wasn’t responsible), he could have ruined Mary’s life. Could he have had her stoned to death? Yet even before God let Joseph in on what was going on, Joseph had already resolved to divorce her quietly. Matthew 1:19 says:

19Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

Note that he was described as “righteous.” Also, in the male-dominated society of the day, this shows Joseph had a greater respect for women than was probably typical.

In the very next verse, we are told that God lets him in on the fact that Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit and that it is all part of God’s plan.

20But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[a] because he will save his people from their sins. 23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"[a]—which means, "God with us."

What was Joseph’s reaction? Did he react cynically with a “yeah, right... she hasn’t been sleeping with another man... I wasn’t born yesterday.” Did he treat his vision as just a dream. A dream that could be safely ignored? Did stop to wonder what people would think? No! Joseph was obedient and quickly so. In Matthew 1:24

24When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.

Talk about a leap of faith! Would you have acted so boldly? Would I?

Joseph also had great commitment to God and great self control. The Bible tells us he took Mary as his wife but did not consummate his marriage to her until after Jesus was born. And in obedience to God’s instructions, he gave the Christ child the name Jesus. See Matthew 1:25

25But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

He knew the prophecies about Jesus’ virgin birth and he did not want to tarnish this part of God’s plan in any way.

Joseph was called upon to take quick action a little latter in life as well. In Matthew 2:13-14 we find that after the visit of the Magi:

13When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." 14So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt,

Did he worry about the affect of leaving town abruptly on his carpentry business? Did he argue that the timing isn’t good. Was he so deep in debt that he couldn’t give up his steady income? No! He knew what God wanted. He did not hesitate. He did not flinch. He got up right that moment and got out of town that very night. Disaster averted!

The same thing happened once again in Matthew 2:19-20.

19After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead."

So... Joseph continued to do his part in God’s great plan of salvation.

God, at this time of year when we celebrate the birth of Your Son Jesus, I pray that you will mold me and make me more into a man like Joseph. Help me make myself available to You to serve Your purposes. Lead me to know clearly Your will for my life and how You need me to serve You. Give me the courage and wisdom to obey promptly and not hesitate when You call me to do something. Give me the discipline I need so that I do not hinder anyone else from coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus. Amen.

Men's Fraternity - I Hate the Name But Go Anyway

Every Tuesday at 6 am for six weeks or so now, I have ventured out into the morning darkness to meet about 30 other men (mostly from my church) for Men’s Fraternity. I‘m not sure what I expected, but what I’ve gotten out of it has been different from what I expected. One thing is for certain, this is NOT just another Sunday School class. This is NOT just another Bible study. This is NOT another church service.

The leader has been doing a great job presenting some extremely well thought out material about the challenges men face in today’s society while trying to balance all the roles as husband, father, grandfather, provider, mentor, provider, etc. from a Christian perspective. However, this lecture time has not been a time of large group question and answer like Sunday School. With a few exceptions, the majority of us are slaves to the clock and the expectations of our employers. The leaders make it clear to anyone who might join us that they can participate and be assured we end precisely at 7:30 am.

All the materials are based on the Bible and Bible verses are quoted frequently. I wouldn’t call it a Bible study but we are talking about how men can apply Biblical principles to their lives. We have a workbook but we generally don’t carry our Bibles in to the meeting. I would say this is a time of great introspection about the decisions we’ve made, our priorities, the impact of our fathers, the impact of our mothers, etc. For a lot of men I can see that the way it is presented is “safe” and men with too much pride to go to a counselor to talk about their problems can see that they aren’t alone.

Discussion time is usually the last 30 minutes and is in small groups, usually of four men. The goal is that our group of four learn what makes each other “tick” and become accountability partners. In a short time, I’ve learned that I’m not alone in my imperfect life and my imperfect Christian walk. I don't know about you, but this is not the usual discussion I’m used to having at church. Part of this is enabled because we have a highly motivated group of men who want to come and be different as a result. (We do make it there by 6 am after all.) Part of it is because it is just men. Some of our flaws are too hard to admit in front of our wives and other men’s wives... at least not after only a few weeks. And finally, I think this program is being truly blessed by God and the Holy Spirit is definately at work.

I highly encourage the other men reading this to find something like this for their own spiritual growth. I highly encourage the women reading this to encourage the men in their lives to attend as well.