Father God, I come before You right now lifting up my brother Brian. Lord, Your Word says to taste and see that You are good, and that the man who trusts in You is blessed. I anchor this week's prayer there, because a father parenting through a hard season needs to know that God is good to his son even on the days his son is not good to him.
Lord, I lift up Jacob. You know exactly where he is this week. You know what he is testing and what he is hiding. Get to him in the quiet moments when no one else is listening. Let the voice inside him that knows right from wrong grow louder. Protect him from consequences too big to carry. And Father, be good to him, in ways that will one day make him look back and realize You were there the whole time.
Give Brian the wisdom to parent this season well. Help him hold the line where it needs holding and let pass what needs to pass. When the deceit shows up again, help him address it with truth and grace at the same time, without letting it harden into permanent distrust. And when Brian feels like he is failing, remind him that You are good to fathers too, and that Your goodness does not depend on how the week goes.
Lord, I lift up the deeper asks Brian carries. The desire to hear Your voice more clearly. The work of building a consistent prayer life. Meet him in those places. Show him that hearing You starts with trusting that You are good and that You want to speak. Give him a real rhythm, not a perfect one.
Bless the Poltonavage family, Father. Let their home be a place where Your goodness is tasted, even in a season that tastes bitter some days.
And Father, I rebuke every attack of the enemy on Brian, on Jacob, and on their relationship. Satan, you have no authority here. You do not get to convince Brian that God has stopped being good to his son. You do not get to whisper to Jacob that his dad does not understand him. You do not get to use fifteen-year-old choices to define who Jacob will be. We see your schemes, and we shut the door on every one of them in the name of Jesus.
Father, build a wall of protection around Brian's home. Send Your angels ahead of Jacob into every room he walks into this week. Let Brian feel Your nearness so clearly that the enemy's voice loses every inch of ground it tried to take.
Refill what is empty, Lord. Give Brian moments of joy this week that come out of nowhere, just to remind him that You see him, You delight in him, and You are fighting for him and for his son.
I thank You for Brian. I thank You for a father who keeps showing up and keeps trusting You with a son he cannot control.
In Jesus name, Amen.
Taste and see that the Lord is good, brother. Here is the part that matters for a dad: God is good to Jacob. Not just to you. To him. The God who is working on you is also working on your son, and He is good at it.
That is where trust comes in. You cannot control Jacob's choices. You were never supposed to. What you can do is trust that the God who loves your son more than you do is actively at work in him, even when the evidence this week says otherwise. Fifteen is not the end of the story. It is not even the middle.
So this week, parent from trust instead of fear. Hold the line because it is right, not because you are afraid of what happens if you do not. And when you lie in bed at night wondering if you are getting it wrong, remember that God is good, and He has Jacob.
Your prayer request was sent directly to me. I'm praying with you. You don't have to carry this one alone.