Becoming a Praying FatherParaugs

Praying Fathers Discipline

Recently our 17-year-old daughter was driving and ran into our neighbor’s mailbox. Fortunately, no one was hurt and the damage to both the car and mailbox was minimal.

When I asked her what happened, she admitted to reaching over and picking up her phone. She only took her eyes off the road for a split second, but that was long enough to have an accident.

When my wife and I were teaching her how to drive, we repeatedly warned her about the dangers of distracted driving. But now she began learning that lesson firsthand. Aside from apologizing to the neighbor and limiting phone and car privileges for the next week, she also had to pay for the damage to the mailbox and the car.

To my surprise, she handled all of the discipline pretty well. As we were talking about it a few days later, she said something interesting. She said, “You and Mom told me 1,000 times not to use my phone while driving the car. But when I hit that mailbox, I realized how quickly something really bad can happen.”

What just occurred was that she moved from knowing facts to having wisdom. Before the accident, she knew the facts. But now she was able to put that knowledge together with an experience and understand the consequences of her actions. That’s called wisdom.

Proverbs 3:11-15 reminds us that when we are learning discipline from our heavenly or earthly father, it’s because he loves us. And when we learn those lessons through everyday life, we find wisdom and understanding.

PRAY your children see the value of godly wisdom and understanding and they will seek this more than anything else in this world.

PRAY it doesn’t take a small accident - or a big one - for them to learn this.

PRAY you’ll become (continue being…) a father who sets an obvious example of seeking godly wisdom.