I’m never going to recommend one use Disney as a trusted source for parenting wisdom. There’s really not a whole lot of parenting on display there, and what little is shown is inept, ineffective, and out of touch. Surely we can find better parenting resources than Disney. I’m also not going to tout Disney as…
Category: Life
Fear
This might be an unusual opinion, but I’m beginning to think that fear is a gift from God. Maybe like trials or suffering it’s more something that He uses for His own purposes in our sanctification, but sometimes it feels more like a gift. Of course, that might depend on the object of our fear,…
Reflections
Wise is the person who builds in time and mental space for reflection and review of the year past, and planning (and maybe even a little dreaming) for the year ahead. Culturally, we have this thing about New Year’s and resolutions, and if that works for you and makes sense for you, great. It’s a…
Perseverance
Perseverance. According to Merriam-Webster, perseverance is the continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition. According to the New City Catechism (question 39), it should also characterize our prayer life, and that might be the single most convicting thing about prayer I’ve ever heard. Even more so than the exhortation in…
Small Groups, Take 2
I’ve written before about why I believe small group Bible studies are important and some of the benefits to be reaped by participating therein. This year, though, as another semester of study begins, it seems especially important to revisit those things, and offer a bit of encouragement as we begin again. You can read my…
Deliverance
Anyone else in the middle of less than pleasant circumstances? Yeah, yeah, I know – global pandemic, major election cycle, hurricanes, economic uncertainty, protests against racial injustice, plus whatever trials you may be facing in your personal life – all perfectly normal, and not worth mentioning as unpleasant, right? (That’s tongue-in-cheek, to be clear.) Anyone…
Gracious Response: A Practical Follow-up
Last week I shared a few cautionary thoughts on how we relate to and interact with each other, particularly on the internet. If you missed that post, or need a refresher, I’d encourage you to pause right now and go read it again, because today I want to take a look at two areas in…
A Word of Caution Concerning Internet Activity
“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” If we ever needed to keep something in constant view, it might be this sentence from 1 Samuel 16 in the middle of a pandemic-induced quarantine coinciding with a presidential election. As humans, we’re really good at judging people. We come by…
Another Look at Hope
Confident expectation based on prior personal experience. You won’t find that definition of hope in any published dictionary, but as I read Psalm 54 recently, that’s definitely what came to mind. According to the biographical material prefacing David’s cry to the Lord, he was fleeing from Saul (again), and his whereabouts had just been told…
Where Do We Turn?
“Stupidity* is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” That’s likely not a new saying for any of us; we’ve all probably heard it many times in a wide variety of circumstances referencing a broad spectrum of activities and expectations. Empirical science is literally dependent upon the same procedure producing…