A Father's Prayer

Dear Lord,

Help me to be the kind of father you want me to be.

Help me not to take my role as father lightly or take my children's love for granted.

Help me to be a good listener, giving my children my full attention so that I will be well aware of their concerns, aspirations, and needs.

Help me to be more interested in spending quality time with my children than in spending money on them as a substitute for time.

Help me to teach my children how to respect God and their mother by my example of respect for their mother and for God's commandments.

Help me to be aware of the things that I do that are a bad example for my children - and enable me not to keep doing them - so that I will not be causing unnecessary problems in our family.

Help me to remember that my children are a gift from God and that He has temporarily entrusted them to me and my wife that they might grow up to be God glorifying citizens, employees, spouses, parents, and Lord willing, children of God.

Help me to talk to my children with kindness and to treat them tenderly so that they will see a good example of how they should behave towards others.

Help me not to jump to conclusions about my children's motives and enable me to calm down before disciplining them.

Help me to properly discipline my children so that they will listen to me the first time I ask them to do something, even if I just whisper.

Help me to apologize promptly when I complain, falsely accuse, act selfishly, or say unkind or provoking words.

Help me to go out of my way to complement and encourage my children and my wife in front of my children.

Help me to live and act as if I believe that it is me and not just my wife or someone else who is responsible for the spiritual and academic training of my children.

Help me to be a proper example of what a loving, considerate, caring, and self-sacrificing father should be.

Help me to realize that it is my job to be an example of maturity and not an example of a disrespect so that my children grow up to be godly adults and parents someday.

Help me to show my children how much I respect and love their mother by my words and by my actions.

Help me not to be afraid to be affectionate and loving towards my wife in front of my children so that they will know how to be loving spouses when they grow up.

Help me to properly discipline my children so they are not a burden or a grief to my wife and so that they will learn that there are serious consequences for bad behavior.

Help me to think of ways to teach my children biblical principles and to show them the importance of preaching the Gospel so they will see their need to repent and believe the Gospel and so they will grow up knowing that they need to redeem the time, rather than live self-centeredly like many professing Christians.

Help me to show my children that my wife and I are united in our desire to follow biblical principles for raising our children. 

Amen.