A Man's Rightful Place

I remember as a child our evening family devotions with a great sense of pride.  Dad would call all seven of us children (of which I am the oldest) to kneel around the bed where he and my mom slept.  He would read a scripture and then comment on it.  He might ask if we had any questions about it or if we had a prayer need.  The best I can remember not one of us ever said a thing because we were tired and ready to go to sleep.  I laid my head down on the bed one night and had to struggle to keep my eyes open.

Dad told us one time about the night we were all in bed asleep and he heard a swishing sound like satin fabric brushing against satin.  He looked up just as a very tall, huge angel in white passed swiftly by his bed and turned right up the hall toward the bedroom where me and my sisters slept.  He said he jumped out of the bed to go check on us.  He was relieved when he found we were all safe and sleeping soundly.  I still get goosebumps to this day when I tell this story.

Dad and mom took us to church every time the doors were open.  I remember one Sunday night feeling very badly and wanting to stay home.  It took a lot of persuasion, but he finally gave in.  It wasn't that I wanted to miss church, I just didn't feel like going.

I am very thankful that both my parents were Christians and they took us to church.  I'm also thankful we had family devotions.  I remember going to bed many nights and my dad would be sitting at his desk reading his Bible.  

My dad didn't always go to church, however.  When he and my mom married he was not a Christian.  He drank, smoked, and gambled.  He was a sinner and did the things sinners do.  My mom kept praying for him and about 10 years later her prayers were answered.

We were in the third week of revival services in the middle of winter with a woman evangelist.  Imagine that!  Dad had promised mom he would go with her at least one night of the revival, but kept coming up with excuses.  On the last night of the revival she reminded him that he had promised he would go at least one night.  Being a man of his word, he reluctantly got dressed for church.  I remember that night like it was yesterday, although it's been over 50 years ago.  We all filed in and sat down on the back row.  Dad was holding my baby brother.  The invitational song was being sung when a dear brother in our church walked back and asked my dad to go to the altar.  I don't see that happen anymore, but it was pretty common in the church where I grew up.  This man was so humble, a good Christian, and could not talk plain.  He was a stutterer.  This just got to my dad.  The Holy Spirit was drawing him.  He handed my baby brother over to my mother and walked all the way down that long aisle.  He got down on his knees and began to weep.

I watched with emotion and tears in my eyes as my dad knelt at that altar and gave his life to Jesus.  He was never the same and neither was our home the same.   He totally changed from a beer drinking, chimney smoking, debt gambling sinner into a Bible reading, praying loud, worshiper of Almighty God.  He began to live, read, breathe, and preach the Word.  He eventually went to pastor his first church in another state.

My dad took his rightful place in our home that night just like the Bible says.  Many Christian men are not taking their rightful place in the home.  Men are not calling their families together for devotions.  Men you do not have to be a preacher to do this.  The devil is trying to destroy our homes and families and it's because men are absent from the home (through divorce) or they are not taking their rightful place in the home as the priest.  Men are to be the head of the home.  They are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and they are to lead their families in the ways of Christ.

Men, if you really want to be a man, take your place as the head of the home and be the priest God has ordained you to be!  Marriages and families will stay intact when this is done.