Jim Daly

Important Conversations to Have with Your Son

Once upon a time, our culture respected fathers and held them in high regard. And rightly so. Dads were role models. They invested in their boys, teaching them how to use hammers and saws, so they could help patch fences and build new barns. They taught their boys how to become men and were living examples for their daughters of how a real man should behave.

Once upon a time, children spent so much time with their dads that life’s values were naturally transferred from one generation to the next.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home

Preventing Parents from Guiding Gender-Confused Children is a Recipe for Disaster

It seems each day brings with it headlines and highlights of renewed attacks on the family, but especially on the autonomy and authority of moms and dads to nurture and raise their children according to their deeply held convictions and beliefs.

I recently came across a shocking report from the Journal of Medical Ethics making the claim that parents should not have the right to prevent their minor children from pursuing “gender affirming surgeries” – i.e., preventing biological boys and girls from surgically altering their bodies.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: sexuality, transgender

Appreciating God’s Design for the Human Body

On our Focus on the Family Broadcast “Appreciating God’s Design for the Human Body,” we’re exploring a familiar passage from the Old Testament. Psalm 139 expresses wonder at God’s creativity: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”

Our guest is best-selling author Philip Yancey, who shares how every aspect of the human body’s design points to the glory of God our Creator.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: life

Encouraging Marriages in Your Sphere of Influence

What’s your favorite song?

One reason it’s probably your favorite is because you enjoy hearing the vocals of the lead singer. But more than you realize, another cast of characters is just as important as the lead: the backing singers. Their chorus of voices harmonize with the lead and give the song a beauty, richness, and texture the main vocalist could never achieve alone.

What if every marriage had backing singers? Imagine a church where every follower of Jesus served as a backing singer to someone’s marriage – a chorus of voices uniting to strengthen the marriages of everyone around them.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: marriage

Overcoming Adversity Through Faith and Sports

The opening ceremonies for the 2021 Summer Olympics are today in Tokyo, Japan.

The Olympics is one of the greatest displays of skill, physical ability, and dedication in all the world. Not only are the athletes performing on a world stage, but they’re competing at such a high level and under such intense pressure (decades of hard work and training often boil down to a single performance) that we often never consider the very real limitations each athlete must face and overcome.

Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events Tags: faith

Twenty-Five Years and Still in Love

Before Bob Kraning died in April 2020, he and his wife Carol were married for over sixty years. When it comes to enjoying a happy relationship, you might say that they had a lifetime of experience.

Whenever I hear about a couple like that, I can’t help but wonder, “What’s their secret?”

Bob provides answers in a recorded message we’re airing on our Focus on the Family Broadcast called “Twenty-Five Years and Still in Love.” Bob’s and Carol’s “secrets” are actually timeless truths available to all of us.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: marriage

Effective Habits to Embrace in Parenting

What kind of tools are in your parenting toolbox?

In a regular toolbox, like the one in your garage, you’ll find hammers, screwdrivers, and different sized wrenches – tools with very particular uses for specific problems around the house. There’s an old saying: if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything will look like a nail after a while.

There isn’t one tool to rule them all.

It’s the same with parenting. Some moms and dads only have one tool in their parenting toolbox that they use in every situation – like anger, overly strict rules, or permissiveness.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: family, parenting

GUEST POST: The Example We Set

By David Kier

“…in all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified, sound in speech which is beyond reproach, in order that the opponent may be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us.” Titus 2:7-8 NASB®

In my early years at college, I met a few guys from out east who had brand new fancy cars and really nice clothes and wondered why they were at a small midwestern college.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: faith

More Government Spending Won’t Strengthen What’s Weak in America

The president returned to familiar turf inside the United States Capitol on Wednesday to meet with Democrat lawmakers to discuss the budget, a massive spending proposal that promises to plunge the country deeper into debt.

Since we were kids, we’ve been told that money doesn’t grow on trees, but you wouldn’t know that from the way Congress has been doling out dollars of late. Based on media reports, the Senate majority are expected to ask for somewhere between $3.5 trillion and $4 trillion dollars for the upcoming fiscal year.

Of course, contained within those trillions are vital and critical items – military spending to ensure our nation’s safety, infrastructure to keep America operational and, especially in the midst of a global pandemic, measures intended to protect our citizens’ health and well-being.

Yet, also included are dollars many liberals and radicals want to “transform” America – i.e., turn upside down and inside out fundamental values and traditions that have distinguished the United States for well over two centuries.

Sadly, there seems to be a prevailing philosophy in Washington these days that money will solve any problem, and the more money we spend, the fewer problems we’ll have.

It’s just not true.

Take for instance our ongoing battle to eradicate poverty.

Since President Johnson declared a war on poverty in 1964, nearly $26 trillion in taxpayer funds has been spent to fight it.

Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events Tags: government

Making Virtues a Daily Part of Your Family Life

One of your most important responsibilities as a parent is to pass your faith and values on to your children. It may also be one of your most challenging tasks. A shocking turn of events at the 2008 Summer Olympics illustrates why.

Both the U.S. men’s and women’s 4 x 100 relay teams were expected to compete for the gold medal. Instead, neither team made it to the finals. Their exit from competition wasn’t because another country outran them.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: faith, family