Praying for Daddy to enjoy good health
O Lord of peace, You are good to all the nations, and Your mercy covers all things that are made. Daddy's eyes and ears, hands and feet, and his lungs ..., they are made by You; every breath he takes is from You. May his thoughts be always filled with You, O You who have made him, and may Your…
Praying for Daddy to grow in Jesus
Dear God, thank You for helping me to understand that spiritual growth is a lifelong process. Whenever I feel disappointed in myself or my dad, please help me to trust in You. Pray for more grace for my dad and I – please help us to grow in all aspects, to connect with Christ as head and to build up…
Praying for Daddy to know Jesus
Gracious Father, thank You for giving us Your only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
Please help me to be a good witness in my family and live out Your love so that my dad will see the life-changing power of Jesus in me.
[PAUSE: Reflect on your attitude, words, and actions,…
Pride and Deception
Loving God, thank You for Your gentle, nudging correction. With my shoulders slumped over my desk, I murmured those difficult words. I’ve been so arrogant, thinking I could do it all on my own. For months, I’d been enjoying successful work projects, and the accolades lulled me into trusting my capabilities and rejecting God’s leading. It took a challenging project for me to realize I wasn’t as smart as I thought. My proud heart had deceived me into believing that I didn’t need God’s help.
The powerful kingdom of Edom received discipline from God for its pride. Edom was located amid mountainous terrain,…
Giving thanks to God for Daddy
O God, who created all things, thank You for creating my father in Your own image, and for giving him a unique personality and many talents. The days that You have appointed for him are written in Your book before one of them came to be. Thank You for the grace You have given him!
Over the years, Daddy has provided…
Prayers For Your Dad
A Perfect Gift for Fathers
Prayers to Father God for Dad
Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth. Ephesians 6:2-3
Have you thought about preparing a gift for your dad? Besides getting him his favourite item or spending bonding…
Divine Tenderness
I once heard a businessman describe his years in college as a time when he often felt “helpless and hopeless” from bouts of depression. Sadly, he never talked to a doctor about these feelings, but instead started making more drastic plans—ordering a book on suicide from his local library, and setting a date to take his life.
God cares for the helpless and hopeless. We see this in His treatment of biblical characters during their own dark times. When Jonah wanted to die, God engaged him in tender conversation (Jonah 4:3–10). When Elijah asked God to take his life (1 Kings…
Wild Generosity
For more than a year, sixty-nine-year-old Brenda Jones waited on the donor list for a new liver. As the calendar…
God’s Moves
I love a good game of Scrabble. After one particular game, my friends named a move after me—calling it a “Katara.” I’d been trailing the entire game, but at the end of it—with no tiles left in the bag—I made a seven-letter word. This meant the game was over, and I received fifty bonus points as well as all the points from all of my opponents’ leftover tiles, moving me from last place to first. Now whenever we play and someone is trailing, they remember what happened and hold out hope for a “Katara.”
Remembering what has happened in the past…
Faith Conversations at Home
“There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” Those unforgettable lines spoken by Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz reveal a story-telling device found in an overwhelming number of our most enduring stories from the likes of Star Wars to The Lion King. It’s known as “the hero’s journey.” In brief: an ordinary person is living an ordinary life when an extraordinary adventure is presented. The character leaves home and travels to a different world where tests and trails await, as well as mentors and villains. If she or he passes the tests and proves heroic, then the final stage…
Time Enough
When I saw the massive volume of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace on my friend’s bookshelf, I confessed, “I’ve never actually made it all the way through that.” “Well,” Marty chuckled, “When I retired from teaching, I got it as a gift from a friend who told me, ‘Now you’ll finally have time to read it.’ ”
The first eight verses of Ecclesiastes 3 state a familiar, natural rhythm of the activities of life with some arbitrary choices. No matter what stage of life we find ourselves in, it’s often difficult to find time to do everything we want to do. And to…
Rejecting Rationalization
An Atlanta police officer asked a driver if she knew why he had stopped her. “No idea!” she said in bewilderment. “Ma’am, you were texting while driving,” the officer gently told her. “No, no!” she protested, holding up her cell phone as evidence. “It’s an email.”
Using a cell phone to send an email doesn’t grant us a loophole from a law that prohibits texting while driving! The point of the law isn’t to prevent texting; it’s to prevent distracted driving.
Jesus accused the religious leaders of His day of creating far worse loopholes. “You have a fine way of setting aside…
Booklets - Traditional Chinese
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Generosity and Joy
Researchers tell us there’s a link between generosity and joy: those who give their money and time to others are happier than those who don’t. This has led one psychologist to conclude, “Let’s stop thinking about giving as a moral obligation, and start thinking of it as a source of pleasure.”
While giving can make us happy, I question whether happiness should be the goal of our giving. If we’re only generous to people or causes that make us feel good, what about the more difficult or mundane needs requiring our support?
Scripture links generosity with joy too, but on a different…
Jesus Is Here
My elderly great aunt lay on her sickbed with a smile on her face. Her gray hair was pushed back from her face and wrinkles covered her cheeks. She didn’t speak much but I still recall the few words she said when my father, mother, and I visited her. She whispered, “I don’t get lonely. Jesus is here with me.”
As a single woman at the time, I marveled at my aunt’s proclamation. Her husband had died several years earlier and her children lived far away. Nearing her ninetieth year of life, she was alone, in her bed, barely able to…
