Dads, lead!

Many years ago for reasons God did not explain to me I spoke for many women's conferences. On a return flight to Houston from one such conference I made a decision: Women speakers were in abundance across this nation. Some of them I knew. Few had a husband partner in ministry. I did. The question I faced was this: What good does it do for me to speak to thousands of women who go home to husbands who won't take spiritual leadership? ...so I quit travelling and speaking,  rejoined my man and we went to work together to fight for marriages, including our own.  God took away two pastorates so we could battle side by side to pull marriages out of the fire. The hidden weapon of Satan? Kids being raised by mothers alone, which weakens the kids and ultimately, the nation.  Ted and I had accumulated some messey attitudes in our own marriage by this time, so God went to work to clean us up. It wasn't fun, but we couldn't salvage marriages until our own was a credible example of the Ephesians 5:21-32 marriage to Christ that awaits us in Heaven.

On Thursday a woman friend of mine and I were the token women prayers for the National Day of Prayer at the noontime prayer meeting in front of our local City Hall.  Never before had a woman been asked to participate in this corporate plea to God to give mercy to our nation that has strayed so far from the covenant with God our early leaders agreed to in our beginnings.  The pastors and leaders of our community prayed for our government, education system, military, businesses, churches and one pastor prayed for our families. My assigned prayer subject was for the Media, a potentially powerful influence for Christ about which I am passionate.

Never has the world been nearer God's final judgment and never has the world had the media resources that we have today to disable Satan's weapons and make the Gospel known. Nobody can cite any statistics about the numbers of Muslims coming to Christ, but it's happening...not only in the deserts, but throughout the 10/40 window that circles the earth where most Muslims live. I have to chuckle when I think of the  Bedouins out on the deserts of the Middle East with a TV  antennae sticking out of the top of their tent/home. ...Talk about God's arm "not being shortened".  Not only Muslims are being reached but millions of others are hearing the Gospel by way of radio, TV, the internet and written material.

Praying for the Media was a thrilling assignment for me.  I was given only three minutes to spill out my passion and those three minutes went lickety split.  I started to say the "Amen" and realized in an nanosecond that nobody had prayed for dads to step up to the plate and lead their kids to Christ-like living! Avoiding looking at the organizer of this event who had every right to glare at me for going overtime, at the speed of sound I read this verse from Ephesians 6:4: "Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord."  My ending prayer went something like this:  "Dear Father, wake up the dads in this nation and tell them to do their job!" ...then I sat down, refusing to look or talk to anyone, made a fast exit to my truck and sped home in time to meet with the fatherless teenagers that would be coming through my door for Bible study at 3 o'clock.  My topic that day: "What it takes to become a Man's Man".  Their dads should be telling them, but it's rarely happening with the kids God brings me.  ...so I'll give 'em God's Truth and pray that some man will step up to the plate and take it from there.
                                    
                                                    HYMN OF THE WEEK: RISE UP O MEN OF GOD

Rise up, O men of God! Have done with lesser things
Give heart and mind and soul and strength to serve the King of Kings

Rise up, O men of God! The Church for you doth wait
Her strength unequal to her task; Rise up, and make her great!

Lift high the cross of Christ! Tread where His feet have trod
As brothers of the Son of man, Rise up, O men of God!

Love, Jo