The Bible.com (or Bible App from YouVersion) has so many great plans to go through and read. As I continue through the list of dad devotionals using their search capabilities, I have come across today’s devotional which is a 12-day devotional titled 10 Challenges Every Dad Must Conquer. Checking out the publisher’s information and signing up for their newsletters as well as getting to download their survival gear, I am excited to get better connected with them as I believe they have many resources that will be helpful and useful for men who answer the call to step up and step into being the dads God has called and created them to be. Looking into this devotional and trying to better understand the purpose of Manhood Journey, I discovered they are “a ministry who helps dads become disciple-makers. We do this through various tools. Things like blogs, eBooks, Field Guides, Bible studies, digital courses, and live events“. I am so excited to get to go through this devotional with all of you and see where God will take us. I am excited to have gotten to communicate with Kent and to have found their resources as I believe it will be of great help to dads.
The Bible.com site describes this plan as follows:
“Feel overwhelmed—or worse—like a failure? We took your most-pressing challenges and matched them up with battle-proven, busy leaders who also happen to be dads—to give you theologically deep and super-practical help. You CAN be the dad God calls you to be. This plan will help.”
10 Challenges Every Dad Must Conquer
Today’s devotional points us to Proverbs 20:5.
‘The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out. ‘
Proverbs 20:5
Today’s Word draws us in to grab hold of what God has to offer through His wisdom given to Solomon and passed on to us in Proverbs. As I look deeper into this scripture and the various translations we find that it speaks to intentions, counsel, purposes, plans, thoughts, and advice. As I reflect on it I see the importance of digging in, reaching out, discovering, insight, understanding, and wisdom. To try and grasp more, I turn to a bible study tool I have used over the years to try and get a better understanding of God’s Word. I found for today’s verse the following:
Counsel in the heart of man [is like] deep water
Pure and undisturbed, but secret, hidden, and hard to be come at: such are the things of the spirit of a man, the thoughts of his mind, the devices of his heart; which, though easily known by the searcher of hearts, are not easily penetrated into by men; or it is not easily got out of them what is in them, especially in some men, who are very close and reserved. This is true of wicked men, who seek sleep to hide their counsel; and of good men, especially studious men, who have got a great deal of wisdom and knowledge in them, but not very communicative, being slow of speech, and silent in conversation;but a man of understanding will draw it out;
Bible / Our Library / Bible Commentaries / John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible / Proverbs / Proverbs 20 / Proverbs 20:5
he will find ways and means to discover the secret designs of wicked men, whether against church or state; and, by asking proper questions, an understanding man will get out useful things from men of knowledge, the most reserved: some men must be pumped, and a good deal of pains must be taken with them, to get out anything of them, as in getting water out of a deep well, and which when got is very good; and so is that wisdom and knowledge which is gotten by an inquisitive man from another of superior knowledge, but not very diffusive of it.
Let’s be the dads who are willing to ask the questions to get understanding. Let’s be the dads who are digging in to find understanding. Let’s be the dads who are reaching out in order to get answers and understanding. Let’s be the dads who are seeking purpose so that we can find insight. Let’s be the dads who are continuously trying to draw from the wisdom, experiences, and thoughts of others in order to find insight and understanding! Let’s be the dads who ask questions to understand other people’s thoughts in order to gain insight. Let’s be the dads who talk to others in order to be able to discern their true motives and intentions. Let’s be the dads who go to the experiences and are willing to talk and learn from them in order that we can draw out the wisdom and understanding needed.
Today’s devotional has been provided by Manhood Journey (more details can be found https://www.manhoodjourney.org/fieldguides/)
Reading through today’s devotional, here are some takeaways for me:
(check out the devotional on your own too to see if you pick up other nuggets, and please share your findings in the comments)
For more information, please visit Manhood Journey: https://www.manhoodjourney.org/fieldguides/.
Day 7 Your child feels distant from you.
- Are you able to get information about your child?
- Are you able to hear their heart?
- Are you able to understand what is going on inside of them?
- Are you making the time to talk with them in order to build a relationship where you can draw it out?
- Are you making the time to talk with them in order to build trust and allow them to speak out what is going on?
- Today’s devotional gives a script that might let you know you need to do some work:
- Today’s devotional speaks hope to us dads. It lets us know there is a solution.
- Let’s be the dads who break down the walls by asking the right questions.
- Let’s be the dads who break down the walls by asking the right way.
- Let’s be the dads who break down the walls by interrupting the negative thinking going on in their minds.
- Today’s devotional gives us a sample of the back story that happened in the original script above:
- Let’s be the dads who are more interested in building a relationship with our kids than just talking through a script.
- Today’s devotional provides us with some strategies to do just that.
- “Review and adjust to your child’s personality.”
- Let’s be the dads who understand the individual personality of our kids.
- Let’s be the dads who realize their personality and speak to them in the right way.
- I remember telling people at work I was multi-lingual because I can talk PM, Dev, Test.
- We need to be multi-lingual with our kids too and be able to talk to them in their individual way based on if they are introverted or extroverted, like to talk or keep quiet, are more emotional or intense.
- Let’s be the dads who take inventory of our kids personality and adjust our way of talking with and asking questions accordingly.
- “Review your history.”
- To be the dads, we need to take time to reflect on our past interactions in order to be able to redeem them.
- Let’s be the dads who consider our relationship with our kids and how we might need to do a reset in order to get things rolling.
- Let’s be the dads who know the past issues we have had in order to work on and through them with our kids.
- Let’s be the dads who can be humble, can apologize, and can forgive.
- Let’s be the dads who can work on redeeming the past with our kids.
- “Talk less, ask more.”
- Let’s be the dads who are more interested in listening to learn than listening in order to respond.
- Let’s be the dads who are more interested in hearing them than talking.
- Let’s be the dads who are asking to understand rather than asking to correct.
- Let’s be the dads who are asking out of love rather than asking to entrap.
- Let’s be the dads who are looking to build up relationship rather than trying to warn or repimand.
- “Review and adjust to your child’s personality.”
- Today’s devotional gives a great tip when it comes to questions and asking them:
- Today’s devotional challenges us to try out one of the strategies today, let’s be the dads who pick up these tools in order to build real and authentic relationships with our kids.
