Ephesians 6:4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

One of my earliest memories is of a family gathering with the wives in the hot kitchen cooking. The men were drinking in the living room ranking on one another. Ranking is a verbal abuse game which is meant to be funny but can get brutal. As a small child perhaps four or five years of age, I wandered out of the hot kitchen into the fire of the drunken mix. I instantly became the target.

I wish I had been raised in a household which feared God and nurtured me in the Word, but I was not. I was raised to toughen up, get some thick skin, and “be a man”. The problem was I didn’t want to be the kind of man that picks on kids.

I got over it. I finally healed those wounds. I did it this year more than sixty years later. Sadly, I didn’t raise my young children as I should have. I wasn’t a drunk, but that didn’t stop the pain of my past from leaking out into their lives. I wasn’t as tough on them as the men before me, but I wasn’t as tender as my Lord would have me be either.

This is not an apology nor is it a confession. It is both a warning and an encouragement to break the cycle of abuse of the past and raise up Godly children who hear the Word in their homes and see Godly behavior exampled in their daily lives.

Psalm 12:1,4,5 Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men. Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us? For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.

Ecclesiastes 7:14 In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.

There are days when I struggle with what is going on inside me. Often good days are followed by bad days when things just seem to mount up against you. It would be great if the joy of good days could hold over to help dissuade the onset of despair that comes with adversity. In this I seek to learn how to handle what is going on inside me.

I find nothing within myself that satisfies my soul. All the things that I did to take pleasure are no longer available to me. I know with sure faith those days led to pain and destruction for the pleasure of the moment is a trap the enemy has set before me. I know what the end is of that path. I care not to go there again.

Searching the scriptures for a way out, I found nothing of comfort. Then at this moment I find the opening verse. Once again I am schooled on depending on God and not myself. He confirmed in me what I already feel in my spirit, I cannot help myself.

Psalm 9:13-14 Have mercy upon me, O Lord; consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, thou that liftest me up from the gates of death: That I may shew forth all thy praise in the gates of the daughter of Zion: I will rejoice in thy salvation.

My help is in the Lord.