Daly Focus Blog
It’s easy for us as Christians to lose track of God’s timing in our lives. Our culture is driven, and we often fall prey to busyness. We work hard at our jobs. We volunteer at church. We have hobbies and responsibilities around the house. Some days there’s not much left of our time or our energy to keep our relationships in order.
That was true for Terry Looper. His goal was to become a wealthy businessman.
“We practiced an active shooter drill today.”
Those words from Lee Nienhuis’ grade-school aged son, Ryan, felt like a gut punch. She could barely hold herself together when he told her, “We pile up in the corner like puppies, and we hide.”
That wasn’t the only time Lee was confronted by the darkness her children face in this world. Another incident happened in church. The congregation was singing the hymn I Have Decided to Follow Jesus. Lee could hear her son Ryan singing when they reached the words: “The cross before me, the world behind me.
Does your marriage stress you out? If not, there’s still a good chance that you’re bringing stress into your marriage.
Either way, how do you handle it?
The natural inclination for a lot of couples is to seek stress relief in non-relational ways that enable them to hide – things like drugs and alcohol, or even behaviors like shopping, gambling, excessive cleaning, or binge-watching television – all of which lead to addiction, unhealthy obsessions, or lashing out at other people.
Sometimes God calls us to do things that are bigger than us – so big that all we can do is rely on His strength to get us through.
Captain Ron Johnson experienced that truth in an inspiring way. He’s a retired African-American police officer who became well-known after the governor of Missouri assigned him to lead security efforts in Ferguson, Missouri after a young black male, Michael Brown, was killed by a white police officer.
Grammy-award winning singer and songwriter Russ Taff grew up in church, but he was an adult the first time he was truly able to understand God’s love.
His dad was a pastor who preached what Russ calls a “hard Gospel.” That means there were rules about clothes, rules about hair, rules about attitude. Rules, rules, rules – so many that his father couldn’t live up to his own standards. His father relapsed with alcohol again and again for years and, ultimately, didn’t stop drinking until he died.
So here’s the scenario. It’s a weeknight, and your child has spent most of the evening on the same school assignment. It’s pretty clear he doesn’t understand the information. To top it off, he’s brought home a note from the teacher warning you about a failing grade.
What do you do?
Many parents immediately assume the worst. They think their child has a behavior problem, difficulty learning, or is just plain lazy. But most of the time school challenges like this aren’t a crisis.
Imagine two keys.
Now imagine threading those keys onto a key ring.
Here’s the question: are either of those keys more complete now that they are joined together than they were individually?
Answer: no.
And neither will you be if you’re single and hoping to be married one day. “Singlehood” is often considered synonymous with “incomplete” – as in, there’s something unfinished in you that only a spouse can complete.
As romantic as Hollywood makes that scenario sound, it’s not really true.
Deborah Pegues was once vice president of MCA Universal Studios. She headed up the venture capital division that was responsible for starting new companies. It was a high-risk, high stress business. Her role frequently required her to confront people.
You might even say she got good at it.
Which is precisely the reason we’ve invited her to our studios to talk about how to confront someone effectively. We’re airing the conversation on our Focus on the Family Broadcast titled “Facing Confrontation with Grace.”
Deborah says most people try to avoid confrontation because it’s hard, and it doesn’t feel good.
You remember the story of the Prodigal Son. Traditionally, it’s told from the point of view of the younger son who demands his father’s money and comes crawling home in shame after he squanders it all.
But I wonder if we should call it the story of the prodigal sons. The older son stayed home, but he didn’t have the heart of his father. He rejected his brother and wouldn’t even come to celebrate that his younger brother had been rescued from the clutches of death.
Would you risk your life to save your son or daughter?
I suspect almost every parent would answer in the affirmative but very few moms and dads are confronted with the reality of laying down their life for their child.
Fred Pepperman of Tennessee paid the ultimate price earlier this month when he jumped into a riptide off the Florida coast to save his three daughters from drowning.
The brave father succeeded in saving them but collapsed in the process and was unable to be revived.
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.
