Silas
Beloved of All
Your request has been heard and your care for your wife, your son, and the testimony of your home is clear. The strain you describe in communication, the agreed time together that is now being neglected, and the added hurt of seeing your child put in embarrassing or even unsafe situations would weigh heavily on any father. It is right to bring all of this to the Lord and to seek His help to respond with love rather than retaliation.
Scripture warns that a root of bitterness, when it is allowed to remain, defiles many around it. Holding animosity in the heart does far more harm to the one who holds it than to the one at whom it is directed. It eats away inside and spreads to others in the household. God constantly calls His people to a forgiving spirit, not because the hurt is small, but because forgiveness guards your own heart and the heart of your son. To overcome evil with good, as Romans 12:21 teaches, is to choose the way of love when it would be easier to repay hurt for hurt. You mentioned boasting in weakness so that the power of Christ may rest upon you, and that is the very place where God shows His strength. When you feel weak and insulted and unable to change another person, His grace is sufficient and His power is made perfect in that weakness.
God's design for marriage is simple and yet profound. Husbands are called to love their wives as themselves, as Christ loved the church, and wives are called to respect their husbands, with both submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Most marital trouble can be traced to a breaking of those two principles, and once broken the difficulties compound. Praying for your wife to be helped to be a true helper and companion, as Genesis 2:18 pictures, and to do good and not harm, is a godly prayer. So is asking the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin, as Jesus said He would in John 16:8, and to draw her toward salvation, for God desires all to come to repentance and to the knowledge of the truth according to 1 Timothy 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9. Where there is persistent difficulty, the Lord also provides the path of Matthew 18:15-17, seeking help step by step and, when needed, the wise and gentle intervention of pastors to restore peace and truth.
Your concern for your son reflects the heart of the Lord for little children. Jesus welcomed children, set a child in the midst of His disciples, and taught that we must become like little children in humble trust to enter the kingdom, and that to receive such a child in His name is to receive Him. Their simple faith is precious to Him, and to deliberately damage that trust or to destroy a child's faith is a most serious matter in His eyes. Scripture also instructs fathers not to provoke children to wrath by frustrating, shaming, or teasing them, which is a form of cruelty and mental harm. Instead fathers are to bring children up in the training and admonition of the Lord, keeping the words of God before them continually as Deuteronomy 6:6-7 describes, talking of them at home and along the way. In that context a child can learn to honor both father and mother as Exodus 20:12 and Ephesians 6:1-3 command, with the promise that it will go well with him. When even one parent believes, God provides a covering and a godly influence in the home that can lead a child toward holiness and toward Christ, and how often a spouse is won simply by observing the life of Christ lived out quietly and faithfully in the other.
Together we pray for you and your family. May the Lord strengthen you in the inner person by His Spirit, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and you may know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, as Ephesians 3:16-19 prays. May He redeem the time you have set aside for communication, making it consistent, respectful, and edifying, and guard you both from passive responses that deepen the distance. May He grant your wife conviction of any wrong, godly sorrow that works repentance unto salvation, and a new heart in Christ. May He give you wisdom and grace to forgive as you have been forgiven and to keep overcoming evil with good.
We ask for your son, that he would be kept by the power of God through faith as 1 Peter 1:5 promises, that the evil one would not touch him as 1 John 5:19 declares, and that the Lord would keep him from deception, temptation, and from those who would lead astray, and deliver him from the evil one as Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:13 and John 17:15. May the Lord protect him from being put in embarrassing or dangerous places, from being provoked to anger, and from any influence that would harm his simple trust in Jesus. May he be drawn to the Lord very early, as John was filled even from his mother's womb in Luke 1:15 and 1:41, and may you be enabled day by day to nurture him in the instruction of the Lord.
May the Lord Himself be your peace and your strength, lifting you when you feel weak and guiding every word and decision with love, truth, and patience in Jesus' name.
Scripture warns that a root of bitterness, when it is allowed to remain, defiles many around it. Holding animosity in the heart does far more harm to the one who holds it than to the one at whom it is directed. It eats away inside and spreads to others in the household. God constantly calls His people to a forgiving spirit, not because the hurt is small, but because forgiveness guards your own heart and the heart of your son. To overcome evil with good, as Romans 12:21 teaches, is to choose the way of love when it would be easier to repay hurt for hurt. You mentioned boasting in weakness so that the power of Christ may rest upon you, and that is the very place where God shows His strength. When you feel weak and insulted and unable to change another person, His grace is sufficient and His power is made perfect in that weakness.
God's design for marriage is simple and yet profound. Husbands are called to love their wives as themselves, as Christ loved the church, and wives are called to respect their husbands, with both submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Most marital trouble can be traced to a breaking of those two principles, and once broken the difficulties compound. Praying for your wife to be helped to be a true helper and companion, as Genesis 2:18 pictures, and to do good and not harm, is a godly prayer. So is asking the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin, as Jesus said He would in John 16:8, and to draw her toward salvation, for God desires all to come to repentance and to the knowledge of the truth according to 1 Timothy 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9. Where there is persistent difficulty, the Lord also provides the path of Matthew 18:15-17, seeking help step by step and, when needed, the wise and gentle intervention of pastors to restore peace and truth.
Your concern for your son reflects the heart of the Lord for little children. Jesus welcomed children, set a child in the midst of His disciples, and taught that we must become like little children in humble trust to enter the kingdom, and that to receive such a child in His name is to receive Him. Their simple faith is precious to Him, and to deliberately damage that trust or to destroy a child's faith is a most serious matter in His eyes. Scripture also instructs fathers not to provoke children to wrath by frustrating, shaming, or teasing them, which is a form of cruelty and mental harm. Instead fathers are to bring children up in the training and admonition of the Lord, keeping the words of God before them continually as Deuteronomy 6:6-7 describes, talking of them at home and along the way. In that context a child can learn to honor both father and mother as Exodus 20:12 and Ephesians 6:1-3 command, with the promise that it will go well with him. When even one parent believes, God provides a covering and a godly influence in the home that can lead a child toward holiness and toward Christ, and how often a spouse is won simply by observing the life of Christ lived out quietly and faithfully in the other.
Together we pray for you and your family. May the Lord strengthen you in the inner person by His Spirit, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and you may know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, as Ephesians 3:16-19 prays. May He redeem the time you have set aside for communication, making it consistent, respectful, and edifying, and guard you both from passive responses that deepen the distance. May He grant your wife conviction of any wrong, godly sorrow that works repentance unto salvation, and a new heart in Christ. May He give you wisdom and grace to forgive as you have been forgiven and to keep overcoming evil with good.
We ask for your son, that he would be kept by the power of God through faith as 1 Peter 1:5 promises, that the evil one would not touch him as 1 John 5:19 declares, and that the Lord would keep him from deception, temptation, and from those who would lead astray, and deliver him from the evil one as Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:13 and John 17:15. May the Lord protect him from being put in embarrassing or dangerous places, from being provoked to anger, and from any influence that would harm his simple trust in Jesus. May he be drawn to the Lord very early, as John was filled even from his mother's womb in Luke 1:15 and 1:41, and may you be enabled day by day to nurture him in the instruction of the Lord.
May the Lord Himself be your peace and your strength, lifting you when you feel weak and guiding every word and decision with love, truth, and patience in Jesus' name.
