Today’s Prayer in on INTEGRITY…
I just asked my 12 year-old if he had integrity and he said he didn’t know what it meant. I tried to explain to him that it’s being honest & doing the right thing even when no one is around. He flippantly said, “Oh, that’s just like me.” J
I do think that he is pretty honest and that his weak areas are some of the other ones that we’ll be praying for. (Is there a day for smart-aleck remarks & having an attitude when asked to do something?) However, because he is young, he probably hasn’t had to face many situations that require him to make those difficult choices.
Brooke states that “life is full of opportunities to choose the easy way instead of the way of integrity, but a man of integrity ‘ponders the way that is blameless’ (Psalm 101:2). Pausing to help our sons understand why we chose the way of integrity over what might have seemed to be a better or easier way trains their minds to ponder the blameless way.”
And I whole-heartedly agree with Brooke that INTEGRITY is a heart issue for all of us!
I love the verse she used for this chapter…Ezekiel 36:26-27:
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
In fact, this verse struck such a cord in me that I used it for this month’s memory verse.
We must continually ask God to change our son’s (and our own) hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. This is the only way they will grow up to be men of integrity!
Here are the scripture references for today’s prayers:
1 Kings 9:4
Job 27:5
Psalm 101:2
Titus 2:7
Luke 1:27
Daniel 1:8
Philippians 4:11
1 Timothy4:12
1 Samuel 17
Genesis 12
Dear Lord, thank you for these ladies that are choosing to live intentionally and praying daily for their sons (and daughters). Please give them the strength they will need to persevere in this challenge for the next few weeks. Please move in the hearts of our sons to change their hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. Help us to be the examples we need to be to our children today. We’re believing you, Jesus! Amen
In our comments today, would you consider answering study question #4 on p 18?
Consider your own parenting style. Is the way you interact with your son(s) targeting the heart and motivating them toward real heart-change? Or do you mainly focus on changing behavior?
**I know that some of you have had difficulty commenting. I don’t understand blogger enough to figure out this problem. I’ll keep looking into it & let you know. If you’d like, you could email me with your comments & I could post them for you. Just a thought…"
One more thing...Brooke has created this Flickr group for us to upload a picture of our "whys" for doing this prayer challenge. I'm not familiar with Flickr but I think it's a great idea for us to post pictures of our sons--our "whys" for our intentional prayers!
Have a great FRIDAY!!!
I do try to focus on making heart changes in my children. However, I think it's easier to change their behavior than it is to change their hearts. That's why prayer is so important; WE may have power to change behaviors, but only God has the power to change hearts.
ReplyDeleteHeart change is so important, as behavior change can oftentimes be short-lived (or at least that's the way my kids can be sometimes). :) Once your child's HEART changes in regard to a particular issue, PERMANENT/LASTING change occurs in that child's overall behavior.
I sometimes forget the importance of "heart change," and focus on changing a particular behavior (quickly). This lesson is a good reminder that I consistently need to work on my kids' hearts.....and I definitely need consistent, daily time with the LORD to do that.