Prayer for dads

Father, Your Word says You are a jealous God. I know that word sounds bad to some people. They think of small, petty jealousy. But You mean something bigger — the fierce love of a husband for his wife, a father for his child. Real love does not let just anyone in.

You are jealous for me. You will not share me with my phone. You will not share me with my career, or politics, or the comforts I have been quietly building my life around. I have treated that like a rule holding me back. But it is actually protection.

Help me see Your jealousy as care. The things You are pulling me away from are the things slowly eating me alive. The doomscrolling I do not even notice. The secret resentments I carry. The image I work so hard to keep up. None of them are giving me what they promised.

Lord Jesus, You died because You wanted me. Be that jealous over me today. Pull me back from the rivals I keep going back to.

Amen.