Day 21: Humility LAST DAY!!!

Encouragement from Brooke

It's day twenty-one. The LAST day of your prayer challenge. Are you a mixture of relieved and sad all at the same time? What an accomplishment! (What an amazing amount of work!) If you're finishing today you deserve a pat on the back! Think of all the work that has been done on behalf of your sons! Congrats mom!

You might've noticed that there are actually twenty-two prayers in the Warrior Prayers eBook. I chose humility as our last day's topic because it is such an amazing posture of the heart. Scripture just seems to scream God's favor over those who are humble in heart.

• James 4:10 says that if we're humble before the Lord, He will lift us up.

• 1 Peter 5:6 says that if we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God He will exalt us.

• Most importantly, in Psalm 149:4 we find that it is the humble who are adorned with salvation.

Do you see that? A humble heart is required for salvation. Just as Jesus humbled Himself unto the cross, we must admit that we're sinners, admit that our own way isn't the right way, and humbly ask for forgiveness before salvation comes. Do you show humility before your sons? Do you always have to be right? Always have to win? Pray and ask the Lord for specific ways you can show humility today so that when the time comes, your sons will know how to show it too.

So what is your takeaway from this Warrior Prayers Book? What have you learned? What is one thing you are going to keep praying for your sons?

Day 16: Gentleness

Encouragement from Brooke

Aggression in men is commonplace. It may not manifest itself the same way for all of them, but it’s there nonetheless. For the physical boys, it shows up in their need to be on the top of the wrestling pile. For the intellectuals, it shows up in their need to score the highest on the exam or be at the top of the class. Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with aggression. I don’t want to break my sons of their aggressive streak and I’m learning not to be afraid of it. But I do want to teach them how and when to use it. I’m beginning to think that gentleness is more of an approach to life than a specific characteristic to develop.

Since they were born, we’ve whispered these words into our sons’ ears:

God made men to protect women and care for them. God made you a big brother! Your job is to protect your little brother, not hurt him. There’s a time to play and a time to listen. If you can’t listen, you have to feel (true in so many aspects of life). God wants you to use your strength to protect, not to hurt. Superhero’s don’t look for fights, but they will fight to protect others. It’s OK to want to be the best, but the best people in life are the ones who serve others. A gentle word turns away wrath …

"But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere." ~James 3:17

Day 15: Faithfulness

Encouragement from Brooke

I could talk about how many men struggle to be faithful to their wives. I could talk about how some men

get tossed about for most of their lives, never really knowing who they are or what they believe. I could

talk about how some of the young men I see today don't know how to hold down a job, or provide for their

families, or how to be a good and faithful husband and father. But really, what I want to talk about … what

I want to pray about today … is that our sons would be faithful to God.

Doesn't this one prayer bring with it the solution to everything else we could talk about? A man whose first loveis Jesus, will be faithful in all of the areas above. He won't be perfect, but he will possess the ability to be

empowered by the Holy Spirit to be faithful. It is something worth praying for.

“Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness … " ~Joshua 24:14

Day 14: Goodness

Encouragement from Brooke

(Originally posted at the M.O.B. Society)

What are you aiming for? When your boys disobey, disrespect, are unkind. When they seek to understand what's important. When they notice girls, cheat in school or fight on the bus. When they're seeking marriage, failing in school or deciding whether to have sex for the first time or not … what are you aiming for?

I want their hearts. No behavior modification or fad parenting of the day. No, I want the hearts of our boys, because God wants the hearts of our boys. I'm aiming for the heart. But how?

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."

(Matthew 23:27-28, ESV)

Looking at parenting through the lens of these verses has changed everything for me. You see I was a Pharisee. Boy was my cup clean on the outside. But on the inside? On the inside my cup was filthy, full of all uncleanness. I had everybody fooled, even myself. I believed that if I did good things, it made me good. Actually, it's probably closer to the truth to say I believed that if I didn't do bad things, I wasn't bad. I didn't know that no one is good. I didn't really understand that everyone sins. And I didn't understand the depth of my own sin until the Lord showed it to me.

Question: In our efforts to raise our sons are we teaching them that if they do good things they are good? Righteous even? If we teach them that being good is all it takes, if our discipline and training focuses on their behavior, how will they know they need a Savior? Are we raising little Pharisees? Or are we raising Godly men with a heart for God? If a Godly son is your goal, you must aim for the heart. Because unless the heart is changed--touched--the behavior will stay the same. It might look a little different, morph some as they grow. But behavior is always a symptom of the state of the heart. What's in the heart, comes out.

"Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." ~Matthew 12:34

Ask yourself these questions:

• What parenting tools have I been using that only focus on changing behavior and not the heart? Am I willing to lay them down even if they produce what looks like a good child?

• Reaching a child's heart takes time. Behavior modification is much faster! Am I willing to change things about my life so that I have the time to invest in the hearts of my children?

• Most importantly: Am I willing to submit my own heart to God and allow Him to mold me from the inside out?

Shepherding our boys is not for the faint of heart friends! Once a week or more I'm tempted to just throw it all out the window (including the boys … ) and take the easier path. So what keeps me going?

Day 13: Kindness

This prayer stabbed me in the heart today.

May__________be kind and compassionate to others, forgiving, just as in Christ God forgave him (Ephesians 4:32).

I hate it when I hear my boys echoing the words and mannerisms I use towards them, towards their brothers. I admit it. When my boys do something...break a glass...pour chocolate milk all over the carpet...hit me in the eye with their toy...I hold a grudge. I don't hold it that long, but its there nevertheless. Then later, when one of them hits the other, breaks their toy, etc., they won't forgive them and they won't show kindness towards them.

Tonight I find myself praying more for myself than for my boys on this topic!

21 Days Schedule

In case you've missed a day or two and got off track, here is the basic schedule I made up. Keep it up! Only 8 days of the challenge left!

1.       Obedience 6/8

2.       Submission to authority 6/9

3.       Integrity6/10

4.       Avoiding foolishness 6/11

5.       Pride 6/12

6.       Purity 6/13

7.       A servant’s heart 6/14

8.       Honor6/15

9.       Love6/16

10.   Joy6/17

11.   Peace 6/18

12.   Patience 6/19

13.   Kindness 6/20

14.   Goodness 6/21

15.   Faithfulness 6/22

16.   Gentleness 6/23

17.   Self-control 6/24

18.   Anger 6/25

19.   Salvation 6/26

20.   Honesty 6/27

21.   Humility 6/28

Day 10: Joy

I’m sorry for the two days I was absent. I was a single mom this week and it caught up to me Wednesday and Thursday. I’m back, though! I hope you all are sticking through this challenge. I enjoy reading all of your posts, even if I haven’t had time to respond!

Encouragement from Brooke

What is joy really? And if my strength comes from the joy of the Lord (Psalm 28:7), then what does the joy of the Lord really look like?

As I write these words, I'm struggling with a deep desire to be grumpy and complain. Most days I handle my husband's crazy shift-work schedule pretty well. But today? Well, today I feel like complaining. So how do I find joy and strength from the Lord? Enough to make me "burst out in songs of thanksgiving?"  How do you?

Here's the secret: Focus on Christ. Focus on what He did for you (and for your sons) on the cross. I suspect we Christians have a tendency to misunderstand the phrase, "placing our trust in Christ." Placing our trust in Christ isn't something we did once and never do again. Salvation may be a once and forever event, but trusting in Christ is ongoing. Trusting in Christ's work of grace on the cross to be important enough to change my grumpiness to gratefulness. Trusting in Christ's work of grace on the cross to get me through a rough day with my children. Trusting in Christ's work of grace on the cross to be enough when I'm enduring tantrums in the grocery store. Trusting in Christ's work of grace on the cross when my sons choose their own will …

"The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my

heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him." ~Psalm 28:7