Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Today's reading titled Not Fatherless was written by Albert Lee.

John Sowers in his book, Fatherless Generation, writes that no generation has seen as much

voluntary father absence as this one, with 25 million

kids growing up in single-parent homes. In my own experience, if I'd bumped into my father

on the street, I wouldn't have known him. My parents were divorced when I was very young,

and all the photos of my dad were burned. So for years,

I felt fatherless. Then at age 13, I heard the Lord's prayer and said to myself,

You may not have an earthly father, but now you have God as your heavenly father.

In Matthew 6, verse 9, we're taught to pray, our father in heaven,

hallowed be your name. Previously, verse 7 says not to keep on babbling when praying, and we may

wonder how these verses are connected. I realized that because God remembers, we don't need to repeat. He truly understands, so we don't need to

explain. He has a compassionate heart, so we don't need to be uncertain of his goodness. And because

he knows the end from the beginning, we know his timing is perfect.

Because God is our father, we don't need to use many words to move him.

Through prayer, we're talking with a father who loves and cares for us and made us his children through Jesus.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Matthew chapter 6 verses 5 through 13.

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others.

Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full.

But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your father who is unseen. Then your father, who sees what is done

in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they

think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your father

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