Full Circle - Your Nightly Prayer
Full Circle
Your Nightly Prayer for Mar. 4, 2025
by Meg Bucher
TONIGHT’S SCRIPTURE
“History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.” – Ecclesiastes 1:9 NLT
SOMETHING TO PONDER
I doubt Solomon was talking about raising teenagers in this verse, but it’s helping me cope with my plight today! As hard as I try to break cycles and instill solid wisdom, I inevitably and eventually have a day when all of the wheels fall off of my efforts and my sanity. Raising teens is hard because while we are trying to coach them, we remember who we were at their age. We battle between feeling hypocritical and righteous, neither landing on the end goal we set for ourselves.
The wisdom from Solomon brings me peace today to remember that nothing is new under the sun. Although Solomon was grieving his lack of satisfaction despite having everything, it’s helping me remember that life isn’t completely in my hands. Not mine, nor my teenagers. I’ll never get it completely right all of the time, and neither will they. Everything can go right, and we’ll still find something wrong. And the days the wheels fall off, we miss those days when everything seemed right.
Thankfully, God is always the same. There is comfort in the fact that He is unchanging. In fact, I often wonder what His expression is as He watches me on the “wheels falling off and careening down a hill” days. The days I yelled at my kid, even though I swore I would never pass that pain on to my kids. The days when I don’t feel like talking about it and miss an opportunity to sow good seeds of wisdom. The days when I hop on the teenage rollercoaster instead of helping my daughters off of it.
Nothing new under the sun, guys. It doesn’t mean to try less to be better. It just means to take the pressure off of things we can’t control, like our humanity. We’re going to mess up. There are no perfect parents …or teenagers. (I know, gasp …I won’t tell them if you don’t.) Jesus has left us the most important legacy. We run to Him for help, and he reminds us to apologize to our people, wipe the slate clean, repent, learn, and try again.
Be encouraged. He’s in it with us every step of the way, unchanging.
YOUR NIGHTLY PRAYER
Father,
When we feel we have failed our kids, it’s painful. It stinks. Raising teenagers is so hard. Father, be with us as we fight the battle of our own flesh and a very real enemy who would love to take all of us out. Give us the courage to apologize to our teens when we’ve not followed through with wisdom and the grace to extend to them as they grow. Father, soften their hearts towards us and help them to hear Your wisdom through our voices and our lives.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen.
THREE THINGS TO PONDER UPON
1. Though humanity and our struggle with sin remain, we can celebrate the new thing God is doing in our lives. In Christ, the old is gone, and the new has come, Scripture reminds us. Let this truth embrace and encourage you today. Though nothing changes under the sun, we can become new in Christ as we live this side of heaven.
2. Do you apologize to your teens? Consider it. It’s a powerful way to practice humility and repentance in our own lives and a powerful witness to our children to how important those things are.
3. “Always forgiven, never loved less.” It’s something I started saying to my kids when they were little because saying ‘I’m sorry’ seems to absolutely wreck little kids. Teens, not so much, but they still need to hear it. On the off-chanced miraculous moment, they apologize, try it. “Always forgiven, never loved less.” That’s what Jesus does for us.
Photo Credit: ©Unsplash/ Michael Skok
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