Survival Gear for Dads – Day 4

It is amazing to me how quickly time flies and getting to look through various dad devotionals helps me grab hold of and make the most of each day. After a week of grabbing onto Love Slows Down, I did a search to discover what the next devotional series would be and found Survival Gear for Dads | Devotional Reading Plan | YouVersion Bible. Ever found it hard to be a godly dad? Ever found it exhausting to be a godly dad? Ever found it challenging to be a godly dad? Ever found it thrilling to be a godly dad? Ever found it confusing to be a godly dad? Ever found it rewarding to be a godly dad? As today’s devotional tells us “Being a godly father is an exhausting, challenging, thrilling, dangerous, confusing, and rewarding endeavor. It’s both a place you are and a journey you’re on. It’s a destination you arrive at and a process of becoming.” I am excited to get to read another devotional from the Manhood Journey and to read that this plan “will help you gear up for the journey, get a sense of where you are right now, and what steps to take next.” So let’s get into it and see what we can learn and what tools we can add to our toolbelt to be a part of our survival gear for this journey of being a godly dad!

Let’s check out our scriptures for today’s devotional:

• Proverbs 17:17
• Proverbs 27:17
• John 15:13

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.

Proverbs 17:17

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

Proverbs 27:17

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

John 15:13

God’s Word is alive and active and is able to meet us right where we are at. So let’s make sure we spend time in God’s Word in order to hear what He has to say. Allow God to lead and guide you in the ways you should go and how to study His Word. This year I have mixed things up and instead of going through a devotional that brings me through the Bible in a year, I am working my way through devotionals on the theme of dad.

Let’s be the dads who love our fellow brothers in prosperity and adversity! Let’s be the dads who love our fellow brothers and will stick with them and give them a hand up if and when adversity comes their way! Let’s be the dads who love our wives and our kids and support and encourage them through adversity! Let’s be the dads who have a legacy of love, unconditional love for our wives, our kids, and the people God brings across our paths!

Let’s be the dads who are willing to lean in and have the tough conversations with our wives, our kids, and the people God brings across our path because we know that it will allow both parties to be sharpened! Let’s be the dads who are willing to connect and have contact, even if and when it hurts in order to help our wives, our kids, and the people God brings across our path so that we can sharpen one another, even if it may hurt at the moment! Let’s be the dads who love our wives, our kids, and our God intimately!

Let’s be the dads who love our wives, our kids, and the people God brings across our path sacrificially! Let’s be the dads who love sacrificially and are willing to give! Let’s be the dads who love our wives, our kids, and the people God brings across our path as Jesus has loved us! Let’s be the dads who love unconditionally, intimately, and sacrificially for the glory of God!

Today’s devotional has been provided by Manhood Journey (https://www.manhoodjourney.org).

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 About The Publisher.

Takeaways from Today’s Devotional:
“Build Relationships“

• Let’s be the dads who wake up each morning and get ready for the day ahead because we know that today will be “more like a treacherous hike over tricky terrain.“
• Let’s be the dads who prepare each morning for the day ahead picking up “tools to help us along the way“
• Let’s be the dads who don’t just get up and go but pause long enough to pick up the “tools every godly dad needs in his pack.“
• Let’s be the dads who don’t rush into each day unprepared but rather “walk step by step, loading in each tool one at a time.“
• Let’s be the dads who don’t try to get through life alone but rather choose to walk it out with God so that “along the way, we’ll get help knowing why each tool is important and how to properly handle it.“
• Today’s devotional get us started with the second tool for our toolbelt that we need to be carrying with us today!
  • “Tool 4: Build Relationships”
    • Let’s be the dads who realize the importance of building relationships!
    • Let’s be the dads who won’t give up but live to get this right!
    • Let’s be the dads who don’t leave ourselves vulnerable by ignoring the importance of building relationships!
    • Let’s be the dads who don’t leave ourselves vulnerable to Satan’s plans and attacks by trying to go it alone!
    • Let’s be the dads who grab hold of the reality that we’re “not built to go through this life alone.“
    • Let’s be the dads who realize that we are in a spiritual war and battle!
    • Let’s be the dads who realize that “for us to build relationships well, we’ll need to head some relationship killers off at the pass.”
    • Let’s be the dads who won’t allow pride to get in our way of having healthy and loving relationships!
    • Let’s be the dads who will kill and remove pride from our lives for we know that pride comes before the fall and isn’t good for a healthy relationship!
    • Let’s be the dads who are more focused on our wives, our kids, and the people God brings across our path than ourselves so that we are able to build authentic, loving, and healthy relationships with them!
    • Let’s be the dads who practice asking good questions!
    • Let’s be the dads who ask questions like:
      • “What are your kids into these days?”
      • “What have you read lately that’s been helpful?”
      • “What’s one thing that happened in school today that was surprising?”
      • “What was the highlight of your week?”
    • Let’s be the dads who ask questions that cause our wives, our kids, and our world to think about it, even if initially or most times you get an “it’s ok”, “it stunk”, “shrug” so that they know we care and so we keep checking in and asking.
    • Let’s be the dads who ask and wait for an answer and listen when they start to talk about something that happened!
    • Let’s be the dads who are so interested in building strong and healthy relationships that we practice and research good questions to ask to engage one another and build deeper and strong relationships!
    • Let’s be dads who are interested in building relationships and are willing to get better at it!
    • Let’s be the dads who remember what Proverbs 20:5 says:
      • “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.”
    • So let’s be the dads who try to understand more in order to be able to dig deeper into the hearts of our wives, kids, and others!
    • Today’s devotional closes with this thought:
      • “It’s not hard. Ask a question. Listen closely. Then, ask another question. Are you a good question-asker?“