America’s Thanksgiving tradition is a time to focus on God and His blessings on us and on our nation. In a year that has provided America with hardships and economic challenges, perhaps it is even more important to focus on God this Thanksgiving and on the good things He has provided in the midst of our difficulties.

In part one of this post we looked at six spiritual responses for parents when their teen or young adult is rejecting. To recap: 1. Love Christ unconditionally; 2. Love your child unconditionally; 3. Pray for wisdom; 4. Be sure your own walk is real; 5. Realize it is the nature of young people to question authority; 6. Remember to be thankful for the good benefits of your pastor and church.

We live in a day of much challenge and opportunity. The need for well-equipped, Spirit-filled servants of the Lord is great. The Apostle Paul trained the young pastor Timothy and instilled in him:

I recently returned from a week out of the office. My week away was not a vacation, missions trip, or preaching meeting. It was actually a time to get away from my daily routine of office, ministry, and work. It was a time to reflect, pray, think, read, and prepare for the future.

For many years, most fundamental churches followed the pattern of having one large adult class taught by the pastor in the auditorium. Such great churches as Akron Baptist Temple, pastored by Dallas Billington, popularized this approach. Recently, the trend has been to offer multiple adult classes.

It’s a parent’s greatest fear—and if it actually happens, their greatest heartbreak—a wayward child. How do you respond during this crisis? Whether your child is a fifteen-year-old who is struggling or a twenty-two-year-old who is questioning their faith, it is vital that you navigate this season with wisdom and the leadership of the Holy Spirit.

You have heard the saying, “failing to plan is planning to fail.” There are no teachers or administrators who want to fail, but we must take time to plan out our year, our months, our days, and our school hours or we will fail. Learn to get in the routine of planning and making sure the “big rocks” get scheduled so everyone succeeds!

I recently read a classic little book called How to Read a Book. That may sound like an odd title; after all, how could somebody read a book unless they already knew how to read a book? And if they didn’t know how to read, how could they even read it at all? But How to Read a Book turned out to be one of the most important books I have ever read.

Did you ever have to eat your words? Pull a stuck foot out of your mouth? It’s too bad that the part of us that most often gets us into trouble is the part that is most often the quickest to respond—the tongue. No wonder James 1:19 admonishes, “…let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.”

The Word of God states, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance” (Psalm 33:12). We must not forget that God is the sustaining power of our republic.