The power of prayer: In men's lives, character and leadership is a Special Report prepared by The Washington Times Advocacy Department and Washington Area Coalition of Men's Ministries.
I'll never forget when the kids were younger and Lois and I took them to visit the Grand Canyon. We'd driven all day in order to save on travel expenses, and by the time we got there, it was pretty late.
Prayer is both a gift of grace and a response to God's invitation to life-giving communion. As a husband, prayer allows me to walk humbly before God in the obedience of faith with my wife; it is listening to the voice of God, and allowing that voice to change my life and shape my marriage. Prayer draws me deeply into God's heart, so that every day I can recommit myself to maintaining a personal relationship of love and intimacy with him.
I grew up without my father for most of my life. Looking back, I realize how thirsty his absence made me for a committed male role model to walk alongside me on my journey from boyhood to manhood.
The following scenario repeats in our media outlets — sharing the same sad story, but with different characters each time. Every few years, our newsfeeds are bombarded with the all-too-familiar report of another child of inherited wealth and privilege not prospering with their sudden inheritance. Many, after losing all within a short period of time, find themselves in severe and nearly irreparable financial debt.
The word "Father" is perhaps the most significant name of the God of the Bible. It occurs 1,488 times and sets Christianity apart from all other religions.
Prayer -- my own and that of others -- has played a crucial role in my spiritual development.
On June 11, Rep. Danny K. Davis, Illinois Democrat, hosted the 2016 Family Reconnection Program, an annual event in which children are welcomed to visit their incarcerated fathers in honor of Father's Day.
If you acquired a new car recently, you probably drove it happily for a while without even cracking open the operating manual in the glove box.
As a pastor in the inner city, you can have the life sapped out of you in a matter of moments -- fatherlessness, single-parent homes, shootings, crime, vandalism, anger toward the church or just feeling the weight of the condition of minorities in the urban core.
My understanding and embrace of the power of prayer was deepened in the course of a 50-year career in pursuit of the calling I felt to truly help those among us who have the least. That lifetime journey took me through a spectrum of associations and institutions ranging from civil rights organizations to conservative think tanks and, finally, to the launch of my own Center for Neighborhood Enterprise.
The best dads are usually the ordinary ones. They may not set land-speed records or have media outlets cover their exploits, but they love their wives, they play catch with their sons and they protect their little girls.
My father left my mother and four children when I was very young.
As told in the Gospel of Mark, the air that day was thick with emotion and excitement ... excitement because of what had just occurred before the eyes of the crowd, emotion so strong no one dared speak as word came to the father that his young daughter had just died.
"Jesus, if you're really Lord, I need a job."
I've found that as seasons of life change, so do my prayers. My fights with God as a troubled teenager were far different from the prayers I've uttered recently as a high school football coach, fired for the very act of praying.
Many a Christian college student has earnestly prayed, "Lord, what shall I do with my life?"
Have you ever wanted something that turned out to be inferior to what God had in mind? I have.
Unrest at the youth detention center that evening brought a change in procedure. Instead of speaking to 120 incarcerated boys and girls in one room, our team was asked to split up, with some of us ministering to the few girls allowed to attend the weekly chapel service.
There was a time in my early years when I perceived God as a hovering surveillance camera in the sky. In a good way, he was a deterrent to my poor behavior and the moral compass of my conscience.
My wife, Christine, and I, were both raised in very Catholic families. We met in college in the 1970s and drifted from the faith quite a lot, since we had an abortion that would scar us for the rest of our lives. We still married in the Catholic Church, with my uncle, a Franciscan priest, presiding.
