broadcast Archives

Understanding Your Spouse’s Personality

It’s really true: opposites do attract.

If you’re married, then you’ve likely experienced it in countless ways. Your spouse sees the world through entirely different eyes. You fall asleep to noise, but your spouse needs quiet. You’re a night owl, but your spouse enjoys mornings. For the most part, with a little communication, these differences can be navigated.

But sometimes it’s differences in communication itself that are the problem.

That dilemma is captured imaginatively in the title of a book written by today’s guests, Bill and Pam Farrel: “Men Are Like Waffles, Women Are Like Spaghetti.”

It’s a simple word picture to illustrate the inherent differences between men and women.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, husband, marriage, wife November 12, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How to Get Organized for Christmas

Is it too early to start thinking about Christmas?

Well, it’s not if you hope to get yourself organized, so you can have a smooth December and enjoy a stress-free Christmas season.

A lot of you can relate. Christmas is supposed to be a time of joy, a time when we reflect on our Savior who came as a baby in a manger and soon took upon Himself the sins of the world.

Instead, we get caught up in all the “stuff” of Christmas: the lights, the decorations, the shopping.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, events, family November 10, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Is God Calling You to Adopt?

November is National Adoption Month.

Have you considered the role God might have for you to positively impact the lives of orphans?

If you answered no, you’re not alone. A lot of couples wrestle with whether or not they should adopt, or if there’s some other part they should play.

That was how Mike and Kristin Berry’s story began.

Kristin just assumed she and Mike would adopt children when they married. Adoption had been a legacy for Kristin’s family for decades.

Topics: Current Events Tags: adoption, broadcast, kids, parenting, pro-life November 9, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How to Escape the Comparison Trap

Theodore Roosevelt, always quick with a succinct and witty quip, said it well.

“Comparison,” he once observed, “is the thief of joy.”

And so it is.

Kay Wyma, our broadcast guest today, shares this illustration for how easily – and early – comparing ourselves to others begins.

She took her kids and a few of their friends to a day of fun at a local water park. On the very first ride, a young boy in their group was told he wasn’t tall enough to join everyone else.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, pop culture November 6, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How God Healed a “Messy” Marriage

We’re inspired by love stories because of their happy endings. But, more often than not, before the “happily ever after,” fairy tale couples usually have to travel a lot of hard road.

That was certainly the case with Irene and Domingo Garcia. In fact, the beginning of their story was characterized by so much brokenness and conflict it was unlikely they could have ever had a happy ending.

Irene was 13 when she first met Domingo, a 16-year-old, street-wise tough guy who was already an alcoholic.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, husband, marriage, wife November 5, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

What Is God Asking You to Do?

Are the people around you struggling in some area of life? Maybe the real question is: Are you attentive enough that you would notice?

Let’s face it, we tend to have pretty shallow relationships with most of the people we cross paths with every day. We ask co-workers how they’re doing when we pass in the hall, but we expect a generic “fine, thank you,” rather than a genuine answer.

It could be that someone near us is having a rough go of it, but we’d never notice because we’re too wrapped up in our own daily routines.

Topics: Focus Events Tags: broadcast, faith, pastors November 2, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Can We Love Ourselves Too Much?

Pinocchio had a big nose.

Of course, that’s because it grew when he told a lie.

But the old tale about a wooden puppet who wanted to become a real boy conveys a message much deeper than just the perils of lying.

It’s a cautionary tale about selfishness.

Pinocchio lied to feed his selfish nature, and selfishness only offers temporary happiness. In the end, it makes you less than what God created you to be.

The story begins with Gepetto, Pinocchio’s father, telling him the wise way to live.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith October 30, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How to Successfully Blend Your Family

If you made a list of all the things in your life you never thought would happen, situations you never could never have imagined yourself being in, what would you write down?

For some of you, picking up the broken pieces of your life and starting over again with a blended family might be at the top of that list.

This new chapter of life may have come about through death or divorce or some other circumstance, but the challenge is the same: how to overcome the difficulties common to blended families and to give this new part of your life its best chance to thrive.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, divorce, family, marriage October 29, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Answering the Tough Questions Your Kids Ask

Kids sure come up with a lot of fun questions – like the little boy who asked his mom, “Was everything in black and white in the olden days?” Or the little girl who really wanted to know where the light goes when you turn off the switch.

But sometimes the questions children ask are tough and quite serious, like “Why does God allow bad things to happen?”, “Why do people get sick and die?”, or “Why are there things like war?”

Those kinds of inquiries aren’t easy to answer, and they usually come out of left field when parents least expect them.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, family, kids, parenting October 27, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Meet One of the Best Bible Teachers Of All Time

I’m excited to welcome Ray Vander Laan to our studios as our guest on today’s and tomorrow’s broadcasts we’ve titled, “Exploring God’s Enduring Story.”

Focus on the Family has been working with Ray since 1995 to produce the That the World May Know video series. I think it’s some of the best Bible teaching available anywhere. If you’ve seen any of the episodes filmed on location in the land where the Scriptures took place, I’m sure you understand why I feel so strongly about it.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith October 22, 2015 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura