Please pray for my 14 year old son Elijah

Hello Beautiful @Butterflyyy,

How are you today? Prayers are still going up for your son, Elijah.......be encouraged!

Hold fast to your faith in Jesus Christ and know that God loves Elijah and there's a "fence line"........God is watching Elijah and Elijah will only be allowed to go so far and then he'll hit the "fence." God will meet him there and bring him back home.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank You for hearing our hearts and our prayers for Elijah, thank You for keeping Your eye on Elijah. We pray he hits the fence SOON and You meet him there and bring him home - safe and sound.

Heal all the emotional wounds of Elijah from his childhood and help him to see his dad through Your eyes and understand his dad.

Give Elijah faith to believe and know that You love him and Your plans for him are good - a future of hope and blessing - drug free and empowered with Your Word and Holy Spirit to preach reconciliation to fathers and sons and deliver the captives from drug addiction.

We believe You have a purpose for allowing Elijah to go through all this mess, to empower him to help others, what the enemy means for evil, God will use for good, in the Mighty Name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Okay, thank you for clarifying that for me. In your original response, you made it seem like all fathers were inadequately trained to be fathers. You said, "Father issues are one of the leading statistic to drug use."

We have to be careful here. All too often pastors preach a message of male inadequacy.

I lost my wife because she bought into this idea that I was not a good enough Christian man. She had an affair with a "much better, more respected Christian man." She wound up marrying this pillar of the community. And now I am relegated to a being weekend father.

I do not believe I said that but if it was confusing then I apologize. Obviously there are good men but also unfortunately the good men in our culture are becoming hard to find. I saw another study about dating. Our cultures attack on the family unit has now created generations of men children who are either taught masculinity is toxic or the music, culture, media, and education teaches them that the carnal behaviors of self pleasing is more important than thinking of others. The media shows the female as a tool just to be used and abandoned with no consequences because either abortion or no fault divorce will fix the problem. While equally the male was one portrayed as masculine and a gentlemen like Andy Griffith but now men are the joke and the women are portrayed as the mature almost motherhood type to the husband like the King of Queens comedy.

As more Americans turn to online dating and the #MeToo movement leaves its imprint on the dating scene, nearly half of U.S. adults – and a majority of women – say that dating has become harder in the last 10 years.

Most women who are currently single and looking to date (65%) say they have experienced at least one of six harassing behaviors asked about in the survey from someone they were dating or had been on a date with, such as being touched in a way that made them uncomfortable or rumors being spread about their sexual history. This compares with 50% of men who are single and looking. The pattern holds when looking at all women and men, whether they are currently on the dating market or not.

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/202...-harder-for-most-people-in-the-last-10-years/

Wow Lafftur
I literally just received a phone call from Elijah saying he had tried to ring his Dad, and his Dad said he wants nothing to do with him... something is definitely happening, and Elijah said he is willing to sleep one night a week at home which is a miraculous start and I will hopefully have opportunity to let Christ’s light shine, praise God!! Thank you so much to you and everyone who is praying, the Lord is still leading me...
your encouragement helped me dust myself down and get up from the last trauma with him, and I was able to reach out in love to him, after a few days and prayer...
I am trying to get him to go to college, the Lord willing.
Thank you for the lovely picture and encouragement xxxx

And the sad truth is that many Christian women are looking for masculine men; it is very difficult to find such men and also as you rightly said, Godly men.
I have been single 10 years, dated online , and I have friends in a similar situation and they find the same; it is as you have said. True men of God who are masculine are very rare indeed, and for Christian women it gets discouraging trying to find a husband. Thankfully through God all things are possible, but it takes a miracle from Him to resolve this problem. I have seen thousands and thousands of profiles and try to not bother with dating sites anymore as it seems futile.

Is this a local observation or national? Our data for marriage, dating, and fatherhood are quite negative.

And the sad truth is that many Christian women are looking for masculine men; it is very difficult to find such men and also as you rightly said, Godly men.

And the sad truth is that many Christian women are looking for masculine men; it is very difficult to find such men and also as you rightly said, Godly men.
I have been single 10 years, dated online , and I have friends in a similar situation and they find the same; it is as you have said. True men of God who are masculine are very rare indeed, and for Christian women it gets discouraging trying to find a husband. Thankfully through God all things are possible, but it takes a miracle from Him to resolve this problem. I have seen thousands and thousands of profiles and try to not bother with dating sites anymore as it seems futile.

You make my point beautifully in the following post:

https://christianchat.com/christian...the-new-millennium.189688/page-2#post-4133278

Unfortunately, I believe you have bought into the same nonsense.

You make my point beautifully in the following post:

https://christianchat.com/christian...the-new-millennium.189688/page-2#post-4133278

Unfortunately, I believe you have bought into the same nonsense.

What do you consider a masculine man? Just out of curiosity.

What do you consider a masculine man? Just out of curiosity.

I know you were asking the OP. But here is a good explanation of who a man should be. https://www.gotquestions.org/godly-man.html
Anything else outside of God's design or commands is destructive to society and the individual. Most of these traits every civilization sees as valuable for the man even if they do not equate it to God. The problem comes as civilizations begin to fall then so does the image of the great men who fought and built it.

My advice is to forget the data and engage with the individual.

Elijah opened up to me yesterday, stayed til 1am talking, told me he doesn’t want to be forced to sell drugs to buy food and clothes so I have agreed to trust him with food money... I dropped him at his girlfriend’s and was home after 2am, at 2:30 he rang just to tell me he had seen his first shooting star...
He had allowed me that night to see where he sofa- surfs to be with his 17 year old girlfriend.