Silas
Beloved of All
It is encouraging to hear thanksgiving for answered prayer after more than four months of silence, and for the restoration of regular video time with your young son. What God does truly lasts forever, and when He grants peace and a measure of restoration it is right to give Him thanks. That you have seen even small agreements come to pass is a mercy, and it is good to keep asking that God would extend that peace further, that conversations would be ordered with wisdom, and that fatherhood would be honored as Scripture honors it.
Your desire for scheduled and reliable calls so you can be fully present, not rushed or distracted, and so you can fulfill your calling to bring up your child in righteousness reflects God's heart. Scripture teaches that marriage makes two one flesh, a deep unity, and that parents are to nurture children in the instruction of the Lord. It also teaches that when believers have disputes it is better to seek wise and godly counsel within the church than to air matters before unbelievers, and that those who shepherd souls will give an account to God and should be able to do so with joy. Praying that your church family would act with that kind of wisdom and loving accountability is biblical and good.
At the center of your request is the need for repentance, and that is the central call of Scripture. John baptized with water preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, pointing to One mightier than himself whose sandal he was not worthy to untie. Jesus Himself came preaching repentance, saying He did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, and that those who are well do not need a physician but those who are sick. At the end of the first century He was still calling His churches to repent and to become all He intended them to be. If He were to speak to us now His message would still be turn, change, be made new.
That call applies to each of us, and to your wife and family and all you have named. Sin, as David learned after his adultery and after arranging a death, is first and foremost against God who has told us what is right and wrong. To see that clearly is the beginning of true turning. Real conversion is not only sorrow but change and restoration, the kind of fruit that is seen when sinners sit with Jesus and follow Him. You are right to pray for the work described by the prophet and by the Lord, that the disobedient would be turned to the wisdom and attitude of the righteous, which is a work of affection and submission wrought by the Holy Spirit. You are right to pray for the wisdom from above which is pure, peaceable, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
It is also biblical to pray as Hosea prayed, that a way of unfaithfulness would be hedged with thorns so it cannot be pursued, and as the prodigal prayed, that one who has wandered would come to senses, see sin against both God and others, and return home. And it is faithful to pray that one would stop sinning so that nothing worse would come, for the Scriptures warn plainly that adultery and sexual immorality, sowing to the flesh, and loving to practice what is false exclude from the kingdom, and that God is not mocked. While you remain married, faithfulness belongs within that covenant alone. It is right therefore to ask for grace to moderate social media and to turn away entirely from dating sites and from any relationship outside the marriage, and to ask that both of you be kept from temptation, from evil people, from deception, and from the evil one. There are places a child of God has no business going to find warmth or excitement, and seeking it at the wrong fire only leads to defeat. To follow the Lord at a distance is to court a fall.
For your son, your prayers are fitting. Ask that your time together would put God's will and love first, that he would gain a gracious and compassionate view of who God is, learn to love God with all his heart and to love others, and receive through the Scriptures the wisdom that leads to salvation. Pray that you both would learn to hold your tongues, to hold nothing against each other, and to entrust one another to God, asking that the world would be overruled, the flesh subdued, and the devil restrained, and that your boy would be guarded from spiritual influences that would harm him.
God desires that none should perish but that all should come to repentance, and heaven rejoices over one sinner who truly repents. He is able to use many means to pursue a wandering heart, the counsel of pastors and friends and family, kindness, dreams, even the hard consequences of sin, like a shepherd leaving many to seek one lost sheep and bring it back from death to life. It is good to pray for discernment to see through deception, for the Spirit to bring conviction of sin, and for the gift of repentance which is at the heart of the gospel preached from the beginning, that all should turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.
So we thank God with you for the peace and time He has restored, and we join you in asking for more. May He grant a radical return to first love for Jesus, a free receiving and giving of love between you and your son, and a work of true repentance that brings lasting change. May He give you both grace to speak with love, to protect purity, to seek peace where it is possible, and to trust Him as a Father who loves His children and delights to bless those who simply trust Him. Sometimes He allows desperate seasons to crowd us to Christ, and that crowding itself becomes mercy when it drives us to the only One who can help.
Your desire for scheduled and reliable calls so you can be fully present, not rushed or distracted, and so you can fulfill your calling to bring up your child in righteousness reflects God's heart. Scripture teaches that marriage makes two one flesh, a deep unity, and that parents are to nurture children in the instruction of the Lord. It also teaches that when believers have disputes it is better to seek wise and godly counsel within the church than to air matters before unbelievers, and that those who shepherd souls will give an account to God and should be able to do so with joy. Praying that your church family would act with that kind of wisdom and loving accountability is biblical and good.
At the center of your request is the need for repentance, and that is the central call of Scripture. John baptized with water preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, pointing to One mightier than himself whose sandal he was not worthy to untie. Jesus Himself came preaching repentance, saying He did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance, and that those who are well do not need a physician but those who are sick. At the end of the first century He was still calling His churches to repent and to become all He intended them to be. If He were to speak to us now His message would still be turn, change, be made new.
That call applies to each of us, and to your wife and family and all you have named. Sin, as David learned after his adultery and after arranging a death, is first and foremost against God who has told us what is right and wrong. To see that clearly is the beginning of true turning. Real conversion is not only sorrow but change and restoration, the kind of fruit that is seen when sinners sit with Jesus and follow Him. You are right to pray for the work described by the prophet and by the Lord, that the disobedient would be turned to the wisdom and attitude of the righteous, which is a work of affection and submission wrought by the Holy Spirit. You are right to pray for the wisdom from above which is pure, peaceable, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
It is also biblical to pray as Hosea prayed, that a way of unfaithfulness would be hedged with thorns so it cannot be pursued, and as the prodigal prayed, that one who has wandered would come to senses, see sin against both God and others, and return home. And it is faithful to pray that one would stop sinning so that nothing worse would come, for the Scriptures warn plainly that adultery and sexual immorality, sowing to the flesh, and loving to practice what is false exclude from the kingdom, and that God is not mocked. While you remain married, faithfulness belongs within that covenant alone. It is right therefore to ask for grace to moderate social media and to turn away entirely from dating sites and from any relationship outside the marriage, and to ask that both of you be kept from temptation, from evil people, from deception, and from the evil one. There are places a child of God has no business going to find warmth or excitement, and seeking it at the wrong fire only leads to defeat. To follow the Lord at a distance is to court a fall.
For your son, your prayers are fitting. Ask that your time together would put God's will and love first, that he would gain a gracious and compassionate view of who God is, learn to love God with all his heart and to love others, and receive through the Scriptures the wisdom that leads to salvation. Pray that you both would learn to hold your tongues, to hold nothing against each other, and to entrust one another to God, asking that the world would be overruled, the flesh subdued, and the devil restrained, and that your boy would be guarded from spiritual influences that would harm him.
God desires that none should perish but that all should come to repentance, and heaven rejoices over one sinner who truly repents. He is able to use many means to pursue a wandering heart, the counsel of pastors and friends and family, kindness, dreams, even the hard consequences of sin, like a shepherd leaving many to seek one lost sheep and bring it back from death to life. It is good to pray for discernment to see through deception, for the Spirit to bring conviction of sin, and for the gift of repentance which is at the heart of the gospel preached from the beginning, that all should turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds.
So we thank God with you for the peace and time He has restored, and we join you in asking for more. May He grant a radical return to first love for Jesus, a free receiving and giving of love between you and your son, and a work of true repentance that brings lasting change. May He give you both grace to speak with love, to protect purity, to seek peace where it is possible, and to trust Him as a Father who loves His children and delights to bless those who simply trust Him. Sometimes He allows desperate seasons to crowd us to Christ, and that crowding itself becomes mercy when it drives us to the only One who can help.
