Ever wondered what the best way to stay connected is? Ever considered the importance of unity both in your marriage as well as in your family? Ever chosen to live your life in a way that nurtures and builds unity? Ever resisted doing or saying things that would cause or create division? With change being one of the only constants in life, are you ready to use change to help you stay united?
It’s always so interesting to get to read one of the devotionals from Manhood Journey and how they speak to men and especially dads.
As I consider the reality of the importance of being the dad God created me to be for my wife’s sake, my kids’ sake, and this world’s sake, living life as Jesus purposed to the full, more abundantly, and without regrets comes to mind. God created us for relationships! God created us to be in a relationship with Him, God created us to be in a relationship with our wives, God created us to be in a relationship with our kids, and God created us to be in a relationship with others! So let’s be the dads who choose to live connected lives so that by being connected with God we can allow God’s love, plan, and purpose to flow into us and through us into the lives of our wives, our kids, and our world!
So with my usual search for the word “dad” and scrolling through a couple of pages, today’s devotional is going to be “Becoming A Connected Father” from Manhood Journey!
Today’s Scriptures from the Devotional:
‘ Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall become united and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. [Matt. 19:5; I Cor. 6:16; Eph. 5:31-33.]’
Genesis 2:24
‘ For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.’
Hebrews 4:12
Are you ready to read God’s Word? Are you ready to hear God’s Word? Are you ready to listen to God’s Word? Are you ready to understand God’s Word? Are you ready to implement God’s Word? Are you ready to apply God’s Word?
Let’s be the dads who are united with our wives! Let’s be the dads who don’t allow anything to come between us and our wives! Let’s be the dads who won’t allow anyone to come between us and our wives! Let’s be the dads who are united with our wives because the two have become one! Let’s be the dads who let go of the past and cling to and unite with our wives! Let’s be the dads who exemplify to our kids what unity in marriage and love in marriage looks like by modeling it daily!
Let’s be the dads who turn to God’s Word because we know that it is alive and full of power! Let’s be the dads who meditate and study God’s Word because we know that it is what we need in order to be and live lives that are active, operative, energizing, and effective! Let’s be the dads who turn to God’s Word to help cut through the craziness, the chaos, the contention, and the conflicts because God’s Word is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and the immortal spirit, and of joints and marrow of the deepest parts of our nature, exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart. Let’s be the dads who want the truth to help bring unity to our marriages and families and use God’s Word to make it a reality!
Today’s devotional has been provided by UNCOMMEN.
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)
This reading plan is a summary of many of the things taught in the full digital course called The Connected Father filled with videos, podcasts and downloadable tips and tools.
Becoming a Connected Father
Manhood Journey is a ministry who helps dads become disciple makers. We do this through various tools: blogs, eBooks, Field Guides, Bible studies, digital courses and live events.
For more information, please visit https://www.manhoodjourney.org/connectedfather.
Takeaways from Today’s Devotionals:
“Day 6: Training Strategy 1“
- “Training Strategy 1 – Be Unified“
- Let’s be the dads who see teachable moments and don’t miss out on them.
- Let’s be the dads who learn from our experiences in order to be able to apply God’s Word and direction in our lives!
- Let’s be the dads who raise our kids in the way they should God in alignment with God’s Word!
- Let’s be the dads who raise our kids to know the importance of walking in obedience to God’s Word!
- Today’s devotional shares how these can be very challenging to dads and share examples:
- “Dealing with back-talk, disrespect and disobedience“
- “Fighting a spirit of entitlement“
- “Setting appropriate expectations, boundaries, making the rules clear – especially as their children aged and matured“
- “Inculcating responsibility (taking ownership) – getting them to follow through, being motivated to take action“
- “Balancing high expectations with grace“
- “Dating relationships“
- Let’s be the dads who are prepared and on guard for training moments and opportunities for our kids!
- Let’s be the dads who use the opportunities that come our way to train our kids in the way they should go!
- Today’s devotional shares strategies on how to train up our kids:
- “Strategy #1: Be Unified”
- Today’s devotional kicks off with today’s scripture from Genesis 2:24:
- Let’s be the dads that our wives and kids need us to be!
- Today’s devotional speaks to a challenging situation and realistically in my mind, for the sake of the kids, we need to live our lives right!
- Let’s be the dads who partner with our wives or kids’ mothers to raise your kids well!
- Let’s be the dads who start the raising of our kids well by putting together “the first key piece of the godly parenting puzzle is to be completely unified with your spouse in the area of parenting“!
- Let’s be the dads who choose to unite with our wives in a supernatural way that allows us to be able to parent our kids well!
- Let’s be the dads who model and exemplify the reality of our love and life priorities by putting God first, our wives second, our kids third, and then everything else after that.
- Today’s devotional speaks to this in one of their conversations with their kids when it says:
- Let’s be the dads who as far as possible won’t let anything come between us and our wives!
- Let’s be the dads who wield the greatest parenting weapon we have, unity with our wives!
- Let’s be the dads who choose to stand back to back with our wives so that we have each other’s back where “each of us knows the other is there, standing firm, guarding my flank and slugging it out“!
- Let’s be the dads who parent well by not “going behind their wife’s back and undermining her efforts“!
- Let’s be the dads who avoid the trap of the kids trying to play things off or against the parents and instead bring it to the center and have both parents be in alignment and attack the problem, the situation, or the challenge!
- Let’s be the dads who avoid the tricks of the devil who is trying to divide and destroy our marriages and family by getting us to “criticize, disagree with or otherwise disparage” our wives!
- Let’s be the dads who cling to our wives so that there are no gaps for the devil or anyone else to try and exploit!
- Let’s be the dads who don’t leave any gaps open in our relationship with our wives for others to exploit!
- Let’s be the dads who demonstrate unity and a unified front by defending our wives!
- Let’s be the dads whose kids know that if mom’s not happy then dad’s not happy and if dad’s not happy they won’t be happy either!
- Let’s be the dads who won’t allow their wives to be disrespected, especially by the kids!
- Let’s be the dads who choose to train up our kids by modeling what a united marriage looks like!
- Let’s be the dads who choose to live out our marriages in a way that will give our kids “a picture of the gospel, and the relationship between Jesus Christ and God the Father“!
- Let’s be the dads who help our kids see that image clearly!
- Today’s devotional closes with this challenge:
