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.
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 Ephesians 6:4.
‘Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. ‘
Ephesians 6:4
Today’s Word definitely brings a challenge to us men who are trying to be the dads God created us to be. God is so good in not only telling us the pitfall to avoid “do not exasperate your children” but also providing us with instructions on what we should do “bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” So let’s grab hold of what we need to avoid or conquer for a second and grab hold of what God is telling us when He says not to “exasperate” our kids. Checking out the definition of “exasperate” we see it is a verb that means “irritate and frustrate (someone) intensely“. Looking for additional synonyms for “exasperate” we find: infuriate, incense, anger, annoy, irritate, madden, enrage, send into a rage, inflame, antagonize, provoke, irk, vex, gall, pique, try someone’s patience, get on someone’s nerves, make someone’s blood boil, make someone’s hackles rise, make someone see red, get someone’s back up, rub up the wrong way, ruffle someone’s feathers, drive to distraction, exacerbate, hump, rasp, infuriating, annoying, irritating, maddening, antagonizing, provoking, irking, irksome, vexing, vexatious, galling, trying, troublesome, bothersome, and displeasing. So let’s be the dads who know our kids. Let’s be the dads who understand our kids. Let’s be the dads who speak love and life into the lives of our kids by training them up in the way they should go so that when they grow up they won’t leave it. Let’s be the dads who speak love and life into the lives of our kids by instructing them in the ways of the Lord. Let’s choose to be the dads who aren’t trying to annoy or irritate our kids but rather love and raise them in the knowledge and trust of God.
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/.
Introduction to 10 Challenges Every Dad Must Conquer
- Ever gotten to the point of feeling overwhelmed by being a dad?
- Ever gotten to the point of feeling like a failure being a dad?
- Do you remember what caused it or triggered it?
- This devotional tries to summarize for us what is and can be found in the Field Guides for dads.
- I’m trying to grab and share these tips, these challenges, these strategies and share them with you and point you back to them to be able to dig deeper or to reach out to me to discuss it more too.
- I’m trying to build relationships with dads as well as other leaders who are focusing on helping dads be the dads God created and purposes for them to be.
- So let’s jump in and see what today’s devotional can tell us when it comes to a challenge to overcome and some strategies and scriptures to help us be overcomers as God calls us to be more than conquerors!
- ‘What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
Romans 8:31-39
- ‘What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.’
- Let’s be the dads who are intentional in how we raise our kids.
- Let’s be the dads who want and help our kids to grow up in the knowledge and in relationship with God.
- Let’s be the dads who want their kids to be able to relate to God in a personal way.
- Let’s be the dads who look to protect our kids and help them to be guarded from evil.
- Let’s be the dads who empower and lead our kids in a way to help them grow up to be strong men and women of God.
- Let’s be the dads who are ready, willing, and able to do this in spite of how much this world tries to push it away, resist it, and even counter attack it.
- Let’s be the dads who live out our lives God’s way and aren’t knocked off course by the lies of the devil who tries to keep us from being the dads God created us to be.
- Let’s be the dads who aren’t fooled or tricked by comparison with others or coveting others.
- Let’s be the dads who try so hard that when we make a mistake we are humble enough and we love our families enough that we repent and apologize, seeking forgiveness and reconciliation.
- Where are you at today? Are you feeling like a failure and needing God to help you get back up again? Are you feeling exasperated by everything on your plate? Are you a dad who is facing these challenges and asking questions like what is shared in today’s devotional?
- “I’m unsure where to begin in discipling my child?”
- “Am I doing enough?”
- “How can I get my kids to open up to me and tell me what’s on their hearts and minds?”
- “How do I balance my time – making sure I give the right amounts to work, my wife, my kids, and other interests, hobbies, or volunteer projects?”
- “How do I battle outside influences on my children, especially regarding media and technology?”
- “How do I train my kids well, helping them to lead a life that honors God?”
- Let’s be the dads who are willing to face these challenges head on.
- Let’s be the dads who will take the time to look into each of these questions by continuing to read through this plan.
- Let’s be the dads who are ready to dig deeper and even visit the Manhood Journey site to get more insight or details, to dig deeper into God’s Word from the Bible, and spend more time in prayer asking God for wisdom and discernment to accomplish His plans and purposes in and through us.
- Remember how we are to be more than conquerors? More than conquerors through Christ who strengthens us. So we need to invite Jesus into our challenges to help us overcome them and conquer them.
- Let’s take the time over the next set of days in this devotional and learn from the Manhood Journey devotional using God’s Word to lead and guide us to become overcomers!
- Let’s pick up the survival gear they share with us and look for ways to use them in our lives so that we can be the dads that God created and purposed us to be, that our wives need us to be, and that our kids want us to be.
- Let’s keep adding to our tool belts things that can help us Be The Dads!
- Let’s be the dads who never stop working on getting better and working on how to use the tools and solutions we discover in this journey.
- Let’s be the dads who look to see where and how we can apply the tools and solutions we discover in this journey for the glory of God and the good of our kids, our wives, and our world.
- Let’s be the dads who can remember the buckets of challenges and which tools and solutions will help in each of those cases.
- Let’s come back tomorrow (or you can feel free to jump into the devotional yourself) and start to pick up and use the solutions, the strategies, and the scriptures they provide to be the dads God created us to be.
- Let’s be the dads who realize that we aren’t alone! God never created us to do this alone!
- Let’s be the dads who are ready and willing to look for and ask for help!
- As I mentioned in the intro, feel free to check out Field Guides for dads and dig deeper into each of the challenges and solutions.
- Let’s be the dads who are ready to dig deeper so as the have battle-proven resources to help us lead our families.
- Let’s be the dads who are ready to lean in on God and His Word to be able to get theologically deep and superpractical help.
