Silas
Beloved of All
Your longing for real fellowship, for joy and laughter in your home, for protection and for a walk with God that is marked by love and worship is a good and godly desire. God Himself knows what true fellowship is, the fellowship the Father has with the Son, and He has opened the way for us to enter that same fellowship through Jesus Christ. No one knows the Father except through the Son, and when we honor the Son as we honor the Father we are brought into that life together. That is where the gladness you are asking for comes from, the fullness that is in Christ, the oil of gladness that belongs to Him who loved righteousness and hated evil, and a cheerful heart that is like good medicine.
It is right to want joy from His fullness and to want your home to know that kind of rejoicing. Jesus Himself rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and He invites His people to share in that joy. Scripture teaches that laughter and a merry heart bring health and strength, and that this joy is not shallow but rooted in knowing we have peace with God through Jesus. When we have peace with God, then the peace of God can keep our hearts and minds. That order matters. First we are reconciled to God through faith in Christ alone, for there is no other name by which we are saved, and then we know His peace day by day.
I join you in praying for your son and for a regular, reliable time to be together by video. God cares about seasons and boundaries, and He can turn hearts toward one another. As you have prayed from Malachi, may the Lord turn your heart to your son and his to you. Continue to train him in the Scriptures as God commands, talking of the Word when you sit and when you walk, bringing him up in the instruction of the Lord. That kind of steady teaching, joined with mutual respect and honor as taught in Ephesians, builds a home where children can obey and parents can nurture without provoking anger, and where purity of heart and a pursuit of peace and holiness are held high, for without holiness no one will see the Lord.
For your wife, I pray with you that she would first find peace with God. That is the deepest need, to have a true worldview shaped by Scripture and to know deeply how God loves those He adopts into His family through Christ. The picture of the Father giving His only Son, His beloved Son whom He loves, shows us the heart of adoption. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and those who receive Him become His children. If she comes to that peace, then peace in the home can follow in a healthy, biblical way. If she does not, you are right to seek wisdom. James promises that God gives wisdom generously when we ask, and Paul prayed that love would abound with knowledge and discernment and with a true knowledge of God's will. The provision in 1 Corinthians about peace when an unbelieving spouse chooses to leave is there because God knows the pain of division and does not call His people to live in constant strife, while still holding marriage as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman before Him.
I also pray with you for deliverance and protection, that the Lord would keep you all from deception, from sin, from evil influences and evil people, from temptation and from the evil one. Jesus showed us the necessity of prayer when He Himself rose early to commune with the Father for strength and guidance, and He taught us to pray for deliverance and to trust the Father to keep us. Like you, I ask that the Lord would guard your minds and hearts, keep you from impostors and empty talk, and give you love that grows in knowledge and discernment.
You prayed that a king's heart is like channels of water in the Lord's hand. That is true, and it is a comfort. God teaches both through His Word and through His loving discipline. Whom the Lord loves He corrects, as a father corrects a son, not to harm but to train and to make us share in His holiness. Ask Him to continue to teach you through Scripture and through His faithful correction, and to give to you and to your family faith and patience so that you may inherit what He has promised. His promises are yes and amen in Jesus, and those who ask in Jesus' name and trust Him, thanking Him in advance by faith, will see Him work in His perfect way and time.
May the Lord, who is the Prince of Peace, grant you His peace and establish your heart as you trust Him. May He fill your home with prayer, worship and song, with pure hearts that seek to see God, and with the kind of fellowship that first rejoices in Him and then overflows to one another.
It is right to want joy from His fullness and to want your home to know that kind of rejoicing. Jesus Himself rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and He invites His people to share in that joy. Scripture teaches that laughter and a merry heart bring health and strength, and that this joy is not shallow but rooted in knowing we have peace with God through Jesus. When we have peace with God, then the peace of God can keep our hearts and minds. That order matters. First we are reconciled to God through faith in Christ alone, for there is no other name by which we are saved, and then we know His peace day by day.
I join you in praying for your son and for a regular, reliable time to be together by video. God cares about seasons and boundaries, and He can turn hearts toward one another. As you have prayed from Malachi, may the Lord turn your heart to your son and his to you. Continue to train him in the Scriptures as God commands, talking of the Word when you sit and when you walk, bringing him up in the instruction of the Lord. That kind of steady teaching, joined with mutual respect and honor as taught in Ephesians, builds a home where children can obey and parents can nurture without provoking anger, and where purity of heart and a pursuit of peace and holiness are held high, for without holiness no one will see the Lord.
For your wife, I pray with you that she would first find peace with God. That is the deepest need, to have a true worldview shaped by Scripture and to know deeply how God loves those He adopts into His family through Christ. The picture of the Father giving His only Son, His beloved Son whom He loves, shows us the heart of adoption. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and those who receive Him become His children. If she comes to that peace, then peace in the home can follow in a healthy, biblical way. If she does not, you are right to seek wisdom. James promises that God gives wisdom generously when we ask, and Paul prayed that love would abound with knowledge and discernment and with a true knowledge of God's will. The provision in 1 Corinthians about peace when an unbelieving spouse chooses to leave is there because God knows the pain of division and does not call His people to live in constant strife, while still holding marriage as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman before Him.
I also pray with you for deliverance and protection, that the Lord would keep you all from deception, from sin, from evil influences and evil people, from temptation and from the evil one. Jesus showed us the necessity of prayer when He Himself rose early to commune with the Father for strength and guidance, and He taught us to pray for deliverance and to trust the Father to keep us. Like you, I ask that the Lord would guard your minds and hearts, keep you from impostors and empty talk, and give you love that grows in knowledge and discernment.
You prayed that a king's heart is like channels of water in the Lord's hand. That is true, and it is a comfort. God teaches both through His Word and through His loving discipline. Whom the Lord loves He corrects, as a father corrects a son, not to harm but to train and to make us share in His holiness. Ask Him to continue to teach you through Scripture and through His faithful correction, and to give to you and to your family faith and patience so that you may inherit what He has promised. His promises are yes and amen in Jesus, and those who ask in Jesus' name and trust Him, thanking Him in advance by faith, will see Him work in His perfect way and time.
May the Lord, who is the Prince of Peace, grant you His peace and establish your heart as you trust Him. May He fill your home with prayer, worship and song, with pure hearts that seek to see God, and with the kind of fellowship that first rejoices in Him and then overflows to one another.
