Let My Son Go

July 29, 2026 

Let My Son Go

This morning, over black coffee at 6:23 AM, I must make a confession to my brothers and sisters.

I do not have the Ten Commandments memorized. I do not know all the Beatitudes by heart. Next to the Lord’s Prayer, these are two of the most important things every Christian should know. They are the bedrock of the faith. And yet here I sit, a man who has been striving, since my mechanical valve replacement surgery in 2019, to become a better, more faithful follower of the Nazarene.

The surgery changed everything. The old man who went onto that operating table never really came back. In the years since, I have been given the opportunity to rectify what I had left undone in my faith. I have sought to walk toward the light. But this morning I must admit the gap that still remains.

Around 2024 I began noticing something. I could no longer sit through the violence and the sexually explicit content that fill most of today’s television. It had become garbage to me. Something was convicting me. I believe it was the Helper, the Holy Spirit, the One Jesus promised would come. The conviction was quiet but firm. It told me I was still carrying things I needed to lay down.

I have broken nine of the ten Commandments. “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” does not only mean a carved idol. Anything I place above God—money, possessions, even a person—breaks the first commandment. I am ashamed to say I have taken the Lord’s name in vain many times. I have not kept the Sabbath holy. Honoring my father and mother has been one of the hardest to admit. I have committed adultery. I have stolen. I have borne false witness. I have coveted. I do not yet know where I would even begin with the Beatitudes.

So this is my plan. I will learn and memorize the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses and the Israelites on the mountain. I will learn the Beatitudes that Christ spoke on another mountain. And I will hold them next to the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer Jesus Himself taught us when He said we should pray to “Our Father who art in the heavens.”

That language matters. An early Israelite would have understood the heavens and Sheol, the realms above and below that existed even before the flood. Jesus was not speaking in vague spirituality. He was speaking into a real cosmology when He taught us to address God as Father.

And that word “Father” takes me back to the beginning of the story.

The first time God calls Himself our Father in Scripture is not in some soft pastoral moment. It is in the confrontation with Pharaoh. God tells Moses:

“Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD: Israel is My son, My firstborn. So I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me. But if you refuse to let him go, indeed I will kill your son, your firstborn.’” (Exodus 4:22-23)

Israel is My firstborn son. Let My son go, that he may worship Me.

Moses was drawn out of the water as a child. Christ was baptized in the waters of the Jordan. Both were called out of Egypt. Hosea would later write, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son.” Matthew tells us that word was fulfilled in Jesus when Joseph took the child and His mother and fled to Egypt, then returned.

Moses and Christ stand in the same line of deliverance. Both called out of Egypt. Both pointing to the same Father who claims His firstborn and demands that the world let His people go so they may worship Him.

Lettermen of the USA was founded with a singular purpose: to stand in the gap during times of crisis. What began as a response to natural disasters has evolved into an unwavering commitment to those who have borne the cost of service to our nation. Today we serve veterans and their families across Alabama. Many face invisible battles—mental health challenges, physical injuries, and the difficult journey of reintegration into civilian life. Tragically, far too many veterans are lost each year—not because they lacked courage, but because they lacked opportunity, resources, and support.

We believe, just as on the battlefield, we never leave our own behind.

That same truth has been working on me. I will not walk this path alone. Just as we stand with those who served us, I will let the Word of God stand with me. I will learn these sacred words—one Commandment, one Beatitude at a time—and continue walking toward the light.

The same Father who called Israel out of Egypt through Moses has now called His greater Son out of Egypt to free us forever. One deliverance pointed forward. The greater Deliverance has come.

From the firstborn son called out of Egypt to the greater Son who leads us into freedom, the Father’s plan of deliverance has never changed. Moses pointed the way. Jesus fulfilled it. And still the call remains: “Let My son go, that he may serve Me.” Today that same call reaches into our own hearts—and into the mission of Lettermen of the USA. We stand in the gap for those who have served. We never leave our own behind. One yard at a time, we walk toward the Light.