Fearing the Lord

Father,

I told Drew the other day that when I look at him, he just makes me smile.  Somehow or other that simple comment flipped a little switch in him and he has been so very affectionate towards me ever since, running up and giving me hugs, asking for kisses on the top of his head, wanting to wave goodbye every time I leave the house.  O Father thank you that I was able to give his heart joy, even as he continually gives joy to my heart.

Then last Saturday, I had to discipline him for lashing out at Emma and throwing a fit before soccer practice.  I confess Lord, that I did not do it in love, or with a desire to guide and show him a better way, but I did it in unrighteous anger at being embarrassed and suddenly very inconvenienced with two wailing children in a parking lot. 

Oh God forgive me I felt so wretched afterwards.  It doesn’t matter whether my actions or my words were right, my motives were wrong and I did not shepherd him as you would have me.  I am so sorry.  My I learn to discipline my children as you do, Lord, ever in love, ever desiring their highest good and not simply vindicating my own discomfort.

Drew is so smart somehow about such things.  He knows very well the difference and though he cannot articulate it, he can sense it.  You have given him a discerning heart in addition to his other gifts.  Help me to continue to bring his heart joy and not pain.

This prayer has been so good for me Father, thank you for bringing it before me again this morning:

Eternal Father,

You are good beyond all thought,

            but I am vile, wretched, miserable, blind;

My lips are ready to confess,

            but my heart is slow to feel,

            and my ways reluctant to amend.

I bring my soul to You;

            break it, wound it, bend it, mold it.

Unmask to me my sin’s deformity,

            that I may hate it, abhor it, flee from it.

My faculties have been a weapon of revolt

                        against You;

            as a rebel I have misused my strength,

            and served the foul adversary of Your kingdom.

Give me grace to bewail my insensate folly,

Grant me to know that the way of transgressors

                        is hard,

            that evil paths are wretched paths,

            that to depart from You is to lose all good.

I have seen the purity and beauty of Your perfect law,

            the happiness of those in whose heart it reigns,

            the calm dignity of the walk to which it calls,

                        yet I daily violate and contemn its precepts.

Your loving Spirit strives within me,

            brings me Scripture warnings,

            speaks in startling providences,

            allures by secret whispers,

                        yet I choose devices and desires to my own hurt,

            impiously resent, grieve,

            and provoke Him to abandon me.

All these sins I mourn, lament, and for them

            cry pardon.

Work in me more profound and abiding repentance;

Give me the fullness of a godly grief

            that trembles and fears,

            yet ever trusts and loves,

            which is ever powerful, and ever confident;

Grant that through the tears of repentance

            I may see more clearly the brightness

            and glories of the saving cross.

Noah #2

Noah is sick today Father. Please put your hand upon him and bless him. Help him to feel better.

Sometimes Father I just feel so helpless as a parent. It started early didn’t it. After a few days in the hospital with him, the nurse rolled Eve outside in the wheelchair, “because insurance requires patients to leave the hospital in a wheel chair.” I carried Noah. The nurse checked the car seat to make sure that it was installed correctly. She buckled him in. Eve and I got in the front, started the car and looked back at our new baby. The nurse was gone by then and suddenly … there we were … parents.

Eve looked at me, laughed and said, “That’s it!? Here’s your baby, off you go. Isn’t there a class or something?”

We still laugh about that moment, Lord. And yet, you have seen us through, in spite of our ignorance. Thank You. Please help us in our weakness.

Blessed Searcher of Hearts,

It is a good day, Father, when You give me

            a glimpse of myself;

Sin is my greatest evil,

            but You are my greatest good.

I have cause to loathe myself,

            and not seek any self-honor.

Why should I seek to commend my own dung-hill?

My country, family and church

            are worse because of my sins,

            and I only bring discipline to bear when I think

                        my sins are small

            or that You are not angry with them.

Let me not take “good men” as my example,

            and think I am good because I am like them.

For all “good men” are not so good as You desire,

            are not always consistent,

            do not always follow holiness,

            do not feel their sin in sore affliction.

Show me how to know when a thing is evil

            which I might think is right and good,

            how to know when what is lawful

            comes from an evil principle,

            such as pretense to godliness for the sake of reputation.

Give me grace to recall my needs,

            my lack of knowing Your word and heart,

                        of wisdom to guide others,

                        of daily repentance, which keeps You from drawing near,

                        of the spirit of prayer,

                        of love for others, and having words without love,

                        of zeal for Your glory, seeking my own ends

                        of Joy in You and Your will,

And let me not lay my pipe

            too short of the fountain,

            never touching the eternal spring,

            never drawing down water from above.

I woke up this morning before her Father. She looked so beautiful. I reached out and held her hand and just looked at her. How good you must be Father to give such gifts to a man, especially such a wretched sinner as I am.

Who was Eve to me before you brought her into my life in such a special way? A friend in passing, a casual acquaintance, someone you pass by a couple of times a week in the hall and maybe say hello and smile and have a short conversation or maybe not? All of those things Lord. How could I have known how much she would mean to me in this life?

I remember very well how it began, Father. I remember what I said to you in my quiet time at the beginning of that week back in February of 93. I told you that I wanted to get married. Only you know how much. I had been desperate to find the woman you had for me, the person to spend my life with. I’d spent four and a half years of looking and holding back, saving myself for whom, longing for whom? Who knew? Only you. I was frustrated but done … so completely done with dating. I told you, “Lord Jesus, I’m not going to date any more. You know that I want to get married. You know how much I want a wife. You know how you made me, that I’m not supposed to be alone. But if you want me to be alone, I’ll be alone. I’m finished. I’m done. I’m obviously not smart enough to make the right choice. I’m not going to ask anyone else out ever again. If you want a woman in my life, you’re going to have to do it and you’re going to have to put it in her heart to start it, because I’m finished.”

I remember the peace I felt after that prayer time, Father. It was good to be done. It was good to know that I simply was not going to think about it anymore. It was in your hands.

I guess that’s what you were waiting for Father, because the very next day in the BSU she asked me out. I was pretty well stunned, Lord. It was a short conversation. It happened in passing. I said “Yes” more out of surprise and politeness than anything else. I immediately went back to the house to the attic, got one my knees and said “I didn’t mean it Lord. I’m so sorry. I gave up dating just yesterday.” And almost immediately you spoke to my heart, “Didn’t she ask you Chris? Didn’t you I wanted a woman in your life I would have to put it in her heart to pursue you? Didn’t you leave it in my hands? Now see what I can do.”

O how you must have laughed at me Father. You knew. You knew all along. And here we are sixteen almost sixteen years later with three beautiful children and a life of joy together.

Father I confess and testify that Your ways are mightier and infinitely more wonderful than mine, that if your child will lay himself before You that You can fill his heart with delight beyond anything he could ever imagine for himself. That if a man will simply “heed your voice” and “open his mouth wide, you will fill it” (Ps. 81:10).

May my supreme delight, Lord, never be Eve but You who made her and then gave her to me. May my love for her be an act of worship and thanksgiving to You who gave her.

May I always love her as I do today and even more for Your Name’s Sake. May our marriage be a radiant image and picture of Your love Lord Jesus for your church. May Eph. 5:28-33 be fulfilled in me. May our marriage, so long as You have us here on this earth, bring glory and honor to Your Magnificent Name Lord Jesus, my God and my King.

O Father,

How precious to me is my little girl, my sweet little princess, Emma.  She ran up to me the other day, wearing her soft fuzzy purple sweater and said, “I want to be holded.”  Yesterday, I took her to the grocery store with me.  She asked if she could ride in the front of the cart, so I lifted her up and for the next half hour, I couldn’t stop kissing the top of her head.

Do you feel the same way about us Lord?  Does your heart sometimes just melt with joy over your little ones.  You say to us, “The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing” (Zeph. 3:17) and this is how my own heart feels toward Emma.

Thank you for my little girl Father.  She is from Your mighty and gracous hand.  We prayed for a little girl.  Noah prayed especially for a baby sister, and you answered us with a happy “yes,” and how much joy she has brought into our lives!  Do other little girls make their father’s hearts so full and happy?  Help me Father to love her and care for her as you love and care for your own.  Help me to rejoice over her with gladness, to quiet her with love and to rejoice over her with singing.  May she always know her father’s love and may she see Your love in me.

In your great name I pray Lord Jesus,

Amen

Today’s Reading:  Ex. 34-35

Giver of Marvelous Gifts,

Last night I went upstairs to turn off the boy’s light and give them their last good night.  Drew held out his arms and said, “Hug?”  How many times have I heard that sweet simple request, Father, and how glad I am to fulfill it!  Thank you Lord for ears to hear and arms to hold.  Thank you for this wonderful child you have blessed us with.

You have given Drew a sweet and kind disposition, and you have given him your own love of giving.  Never have I met a child with such a generous heart, a child who finds so much joy in the joy of others.  This can only come from you dear Lord.  May he always have such a wonderful delight in givng to others.

To think that we almost lost him, Father.  I remember that Eve and I had decided to try and have a child about two years after Noah.  It had been hard getting pregnant with Noah, but Drew came so easily from your hand, almost as soon as we decided.  I took him for granted Father.  I didn’t pray as I should have.  Please forgive me.  Then there was that terrible day, Lord.  O how you woke me up from stupor that day.  Never in my life was I so glad to see a little heart beat on a sonagram.  Just seconds before the doctor told us he was gone, but how wonderfully wrong he was.  You heard me in my distress.  You answered the cry of my heart.  You revived a spirit of prayer in me again.

Well did David say of you, “I will sing of Your might; Yes, I will sing alond of Your mercy …” (Ps. 59:16).  When I think of your gift of Drew I long to join that blessed song.  May we ever sing of your might and mercy wonderful God.  May Drew grow up to sing in long and loud as well.  You have already graced him with salvation and graced him with a generous heart.  Lord, please pour out your grace more abundantly still on this child you have given us.

We love you and praise your blessed name mighty Jesus.

Today’s Reading:  Matt. 22; Ex. 31-33

Today Father, I was walking by Noah as he was working on his homework, and I just had to smile at him.  What a blessing he is.  It’s strange to think that I have a nine year old son already.  It seems like he was just born yesterday.

I remember the day, Lord, as well as I remember this morning, maybe even better.  Eve went through that long and very trying, even frightening labor.  Finally in the early morning hours the doctors determined that he wasn’t progressing and they would have to do a c-section.  Oh how I prayed to you that night.  Shortly after that, by your gracious hand, he was born.

I remember how he came out crying, like it was some terrible insult to have to face the world.  The doctor cut the cord and the nurse started to take him away when the anesthesiologist, Lord bless him, said, “Hey bring that baby over here so momma can kiss him.”  She did, his very first kiss.  Then they cleaned him up and gave him to me.

It was one of the greatest moments you have ever given me Father, holding that baby boy in my arms.  He was so alert, his perfect bright blue eyes looking intently up at me.  I thank you so much for that gift.  Even the pediatrician remarked on it as he took him, “My, my you’re an alert one aren’t you.  Don’t see hardly any like that.”  I started calling him “bright eyes” after that Father, cause of his bright shining and inquisitive eyes.

Lord, thank you for Noah.  Thank you that you have shown “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6) into Noah’s heart.  Thank you for giving him life and then for giving him new life in the Lord Jesus.  Thank you that he has a heart to know and love you and that he is so sensitive to sin and so pained when he disappoints you.  Help me Lord to be a steadfast and faithful father to him, always pointing him to you, always guiding his feet into your paths.  Grant that Noah may always walk in the Spirit and grow into a mighty man of God.

I Love you Lord Jesus.  In your name I pray, amen.

Today’s Reading:  Matt. 21; Ex. 27-30

Father,

You have said, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord.”  I can attest to the truthfulness of this for you have blessed me beyond measure.  Thank you for my sweet Eve, her laughs, her smiles, her constant friendship and encouragement over the years.

I wish that I could remember, Father, the day that you first brought her into my life and we met.  I certainly didn’t know at that moment what a tremendous blessing you were setting before me and I had no thought that this was the woman I would spend my life with.  Do you ever laugh in such moments as you look ahead in time and see the happiness you are preparing for your children, the table of joy you’re setting that we can’t see yet?

Whatever day it was in the fall of 91, it was a great day, and I thank you for it.  Thank you for my wife, Father.  You are the giver of good gifts!! And you pour out your favor on undeserving men!!  Thank you for the wholly unmerited favor you have given to me through the blessing of Eve.

I pray Father that you would watch over Eve with joy this day.  Please guard her and care for her.  Help her lord to teach well.  Fill her mouth with wisdom, encouragement and whatever is good and necessary for our children.  Grant her Lord a sweet peace and joy in believing according to your word in Romans 15:13, and help me Father to be a blessing to her.

In Jesus’ blessed name.

Today’s Reading:  Matt. 20

Lord Jesus,

Thank you for the opportunity to launch this new web site and ministry.  I give it to you and ask that you would take it and use it for the glory and honor of Your name.  You have been so good to meand I have been so undeserving.  Thank you for putting it in my heart to treasure you above all else.