A Prayer for Father's Day

Today is Father's Day, a day set aside to honor fathers and father figures. As we celebrate the day with our dads, granddads and men who have exhibited fatherly influences in our lives, we offer this simple prayer.

Father,

We thank you for the men in our lives who have taught us more about you through their godly character. Compassionate, loving, merciful men who have shown us Your grace, exhibited Your love and walked in Your wisdom and joy. We thank you, Lord, for men—whether they were our biological fathers or not—who have given us a small glimpse of what it means to be loved by someone who will not abandon us, whose love does not give up and who help us to see the people You have called us to be.

We remember today, Lord, those whose earthly fathers didn't shine with Your light. We come to you in our brokenness, our pain, our hurt. We bring it to You believing You are a God who brings beauty from ashes. Lord, help us to shine with Your light, to forgive, to rest in the reality that You are a God who can bring life where there is only death.

On this day, Father, we pray for those who long to be fathers and aren't. We pray for those who feel the fissures of their brokenness, who wonder if their failures and flaws have ruined their chances of being a godly father. Lord, we lift up those who struggle and those who are sure, those who lie awake at night and those who are exhausted and worn thin. Lord, we pray for strength, for hope, for peace, for joy. Let you love flow through us today.