Daly Focus Blog
There’s a risk in going too fast.
I’m reminded of the time a group of friends invited me to an afternoon of road racing at a Le Mans style race track. A buddy and I were handed the keys to Corvettes, Lamborghinis, and other high performance cars and given just one instruction: “Have fun.” The track had S-turns, hair pin curves, and straightaways where you could reach speeds in excess of 125 miles per hour if you were daring enough.
A television show that never ceases to fascinate me when I’m able to catch an episode is “Antiques Roadshow.” If you’ve never seen it, antique experts travel with the show from city to city and offer appraisals for the collectibles people always seem to have tucked away in their attics.
Here’s the part that gets me: Someone inevitably brings in a painting splashed with bizarre colors or an odd-shaped figurine that makes me wonder, “Why would anyone want something like that in their home?”
Then the appraisal comes, and I discover the item is worth a small fortune.
“…to love and to cherish, till death do us part.”
A lot of us recited similar vows at our wedding, but no sooner did we walk the gauntlet of flying rice than the word “cherish” began fading from our vocabulary. We didn’t mean for it to happen. The years went by, we settled into our lives, and we woke up one day with a marriage that was missing something deeper, more satisfying.
Visible light is perceived as only one color, but shine it through a prism, and you discover it’s actually a whole rainbow.
I just posted the other day about kindness, but it’s on my mind again.
I’ve been thinking about kindness a lot because I believe it lies at the heart of the Gospel. It’s why one of my favorite verses is Romans 2:4, which says it’s “God’s kindness that leads us to repentance.”
Have you ever met a single believer who became a Christian as a result of judgment, condemnation, or ridicule? Me neither. It’s the kindness of God that opens people’s hearts to the message of God.
One of most iconic and beloved stories in the Bible is that of the Prodigal Son. All of us can find ourselves in that portion of Scripture. Some are prodigal sons, and some are prodigal daughters.
One of the latter is my good friend and former Focus on the Family colleague Yvette Maher. You know how it is with fellow staff members. Years may pass before you learn anything about their history.
I knew and appreciated Yvette’s deep faith from the beginning.
“They’ve told me that I may have to go on a breathing machine soon. I’m not sure that’s something that I want to do, but I’m afraid to dishonor the Lord. Should I say yes to a respirator, or should I say no?”
If someone asked you that question, how would you answer?
How to apply God’s truth to very real and very dark realities is not always easy. When you’re wrestling with a question as profound as whether or not life is worth living, only God – not conventional wisdom – is adequate to answer.
“He wasn’t easy to raise, but it’s been more difficult losing him.”
That’s how Jan Harrison describes the emotional struggle she’s endured since her son, James, passed away six years ago at the age of 27. He was a challenge to raise because he was born with an adventurous spirit. He wasn’t the kind of kid who responded well to boundaries that locked him down.
That’s not easy for a mom whose natural instinct was to keep her son safe.
Today’s broadcast has me thinking a lot about one of my favorite verses in the Bible. It reminds me of how I ought to conduct myself in the name of Christ. In Romans 2:4, Paul tells us that it’s “God’s kindness that leads us to repentance.”
Kindness is a fruit of the Spirit – an expression of God’s nature through us – and one of the most powerful tools for Christians who wish to be the hands and feet of Jesus to the world around them.
“It started as a normal day…”
Anytime a story begins with that line, you know it’s not going to end well. Katherine’s story begins like that.
April 21, 2008 started as a normal day. Katherine was a 26-year-old wife and new mother. She had been the picture of health. But on that fateful Monday she experienced what she describes as a “funky feeling” she couldn’t shake. Within hours, she was on her hands and knees throwing up, her body slowly going numb.
You know how it is when you move into a new home. There’s so much to do at the old house, you just throw everything into boxes and commit to sorting through it all at the new house.
That’s what Jean and I did when we moved into our current home. Once the truck was unloaded, we pulled the lid off each box and looked through every item one by one.
Keep this.
Put that over there.
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.
