Raising up a Generation That Loves America

[Major (Ret.) William J. Ostan, Esq., is a spiritual son of mine. The Lord connected us when he was barely out of college. He is one the Lord has given a deep passion for our nation to. He is medically retired from the Army and is now working to change the lives of wounded warriors like himself. I want you to hear some of his moving story. He and his wife, Jen, founded Arc of Justice. Jen has been honored as a Hidden Hero.]

“9/11/2001 had a tremendous impact on me. I wanted to enlist, but was discouraged to do so by someone I sought for counsel. So, I went to Pepperdine University in California to go to law school. While I was there, Pat Tilman was killed in the Iraq War. He was an NFL football star who had given up a $3+ million dollar salary to join the Army Rangers. Something about his death hit me hard. He had given up so much. I had been raised in an upper middle class family and my country had been at war, but I was safe on America’s shores. I sat there and wept, then went home and told my young wife that I needed to serve in the Army. To my relief, she agreed.

“So, I finished my degree, passed the bar exam, and joined the Army. I expected to serve for three years. But I found that I loved serving my country as a soldier! I was passionate about it. So, I ended up staying for 12 years. The only reason I left is because I acquired an illness during my deployment in Afghanistan that is debilitating at times. I was medically discharged on 9/11/2019. 

“I love this nation and I have loved serving this nation. God put something in me that my father nurtured. My father served in the military for 3 years, and his father served as a Marine under MacArthur during WWII. My dad also loved history. He loved Abraham Lincoln and had hundreds of books about him. I loved to read those books. He took me as a teen to Gettysburg. At the time, I couldn’t fully comprehend what happened there, but he planted seeds in my heart about the significance of it. My dad saw a passion in me for all of this and he wanted to be sure to direct it toward love of God and love of country. My mom was also involved. She taught me about prayer and the importance of praying for our nation.

“All of this was very intentional on my parents’ part. It wasn’t regimented, but was woven into the way they raised me. It went right along with making sure I was raised as a man of godly character and integrity. My dad purposefully took me to historical sites while I was growing up. At Gettysburg, we visited the statues of those that won the war and also of those that were on the losing side. There were lessons to be learned there from both sides of the war and he made sure I understood those lessons from history. I am thankful for all that my dad and mom put in me and I plan to pass those types of lessons to my daughters.”

“Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.” (Deuteronomy 32:7; ESV)

Give Him 15 minutes in prayer:

  • The Bible tells us to raise up a child in the way they should go, so when they are old they will not turn from it. Intercede for parents today to know how to raise children that love God and love their country.
  • If you are still raising your family, consider this. Pray together with your spouse as to how you are molding your children, first to love the Lord, of course, but to also include their love of country.
  • Intercede for all the Christian families raising the next generation currently. Ask the Lord to give them creative and engaging ideas to teach the children about our history and government, and how to be a good citizen.
  • Pastors, be sure you are teaching your congregants about national issues from a biblical perspective. Then, they can pray and vote and effect changes that move this nation in a more righteous direction for the sake of the children and generations to follow.

A prayer you can pray:

Lord, thank You for Bill Ostan’s impactful testimony of how he came to love and serve America. Every parent should be as intentional as his mom and dad were in raising him to understand the world we are going to be living in. He is living in the United States of America, and his mom and dad taught him about our history and how to serve the country as a godly man. Forgive us if we did not think of this when we raised our own children. Please help all parents, even grandparents, to be more intentional in our raising of the next generation. Our educational system often ignores the subject of government or teaches them a form of history that is not what the historical record shows. We must help preserve it, as well as to teach our kids the lessons that must be learned from it. 

If the generations that follow us are to keep the Republic we inherited from our forefathers, then we all need to teach them about it, including our pastors and other church leaders. We can’t back down from teaching them about moral issues that are matters of law. We need to show them what the Bible says about godly character, sexual sin, abortion and infanticide and so many other things that You talk about in Your Word. Give us a holy boldness to do so, that we do not lose them to the world’s systems and the god of this age. They need to be raised to carry history forward as You desire, not to remake the nation in man’s image. Grace us, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Today’s decree:

We will raise our children to love God and love America!