relationships Archives

A Valentine’s Message: Be Joyful and Have Fun

A Christian woman a few years into her marriage once reflected back on the days leading up to her wedding:

“As excited as we were to start our new life together, my husband and I were also a little fearful. We had heard from so many Christian couples, and in so many sermons, about how difficult and challenging marriage is. You can’t help but think, ‘Am I crazy to go through with this?’”

She’s right – Christians spend a lot of time talking about marriage in light of the commitment it requires and the sacrifices we must make as husbands and wives.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, husband, marriage, relationships, wife February 14, 2014 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How to Love Singles this Valentine’s Day

All married people were once single – but it’s surprising how quickly we forget what it was like to navigate everyday life as a single person.

Sometimes that “memory loss” is evident in the way we interact with singles. Perhaps, without meaning to, we ask insensitive questions or brush aside their heartfelt fears and concerns with a pithy statement.

Other times that memory loss manifests itself in what we don’t do: We fail to invite our single friends over to dinner at the house.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, relationships February 13, 2014 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Is It Wrong to Meet with Your Ideological Opposite?

I once met with a well-known homosexual activist. I remember feeling the Lord’s prompting to reach out to this man – and pushing off that meeting for months. (I recently shared more about this meeting with the Catalyst conference via video.)

You might have also heard in the news awhile back that I’ve met with abortion rights groups in hopes that we might find a way to realize their stated goal of making abortion more rare.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: church, faith, relationships February 5, 2014 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Singleness During the Christmas Season

Being single during the holidays is the stuff movies, blog posts and TV show plot lines are made of. While they’re usually making light of how “awkward” things are for singles during Christmas, others try to look on the bright side of things.

I’m not belittling the importance of the topic. Our own outreach for single adults, Boundless, has a plethora of resources addressing the issue – and for good reason. God created us for community and companionship.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, marriage, parenting, relationships December 17, 2013 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Click Here for the Best Programs of the Year

If you’re a regular listener to our daily radio program, you know that each December we re-air some of our most popular broadcasts of the year.

Simply put, it’s the “best of the best,” and I want to share the schedule with you below, complete with links for easy access.

Wherever you are, you can catch the broadcast on the radio, online or even via our mobile app.

If you want to find out what local stations carry the Focus on the Family Daily Broadcast, you can access it at this link.

Topics: Focus Events Tags: broadcast, faith, marriage, parenting, relationships December 10, 2013 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

What Would You Tell Yourself?

The other day I found my boys, Trent and Troy, giggling over an old photo album they’d found. After plopping into the couch with them and enduring some good-natured ribbing about old hairstyles and clothing choices their mother and I had once made, one photo in particular grabbed my attention.

It was a snapshot of me with my arm around Troy’s shoulder when he was about five years old. I was immediately struck by how much he looked like me at that same age.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: friendship, pro-life, relationships November 18, 2013 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Guest Post: When It Comes to Adoption, Community Makes All the Difference

We’re in the middle of National Adoption Month, and I’m taking the occasion to highlight various adoption stories of real-life families. It’s my hope that these stories will educate you about both the blessings and the challenges of adoption, and even inspire your family to consider adoption.

We kicked off the series last week with Dr. Russell Moore’s adoption story. This week, I’m happy to have Kelly Rosati, Focus’ vice president over our Community Outreach team, share hers.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: adoption, kids, relationships November 14, 2013 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

How Shoeboxes Help Spread the Gospel

It’s hard to believe the holiday season is right around the corner. In an effort to combat the overly materialistic hue Christmas has taken on, some commentators will bemoan the tradition of gift-giving.

I won’t be one of them.

Don’t get me wrong – I agree that, far too often, we’ve allowed Christmas to become what it’s not. It’s obviously not about running over fallen shoppers to get the “it” toy for a son or daughter.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith, kids, relationships, religious liberty October 30, 2013 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Tweets Between the Sheets

Smartphones and tablets are becoming more and more ubiquitous. Increasingly they’re our constant source of news and entertainment. Sometimes it seems like these devices are surgically attached to our hands – but this reliance on smart technology is also demanding us to make decisions about what we prioritize and how we will steward our time.

Today I want to share with you a post written by one of our young staffers. In it, Chelsey, a newlywed, explores how she waded through the choices her iPhone forced her to make:

The phone alarm wakes my husband.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: husband, marriage, relationships, wife August 13, 2013 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Three Things to Remember Before Giving Advice to Your Spouse

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a rather provocative column on marriage and advice-giving, linking the practice to lower marital satisfaction rates. Here’s the crux of the findings:

In a series of six studies that followed 100 couples for the first seven years of marriage, researchers at the University of Iowa found that both husbands and wives feel lower marital satisfaction when they are given too much advice from a spouse, as opposed to too little.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: marriage, relationships July 24, 2013 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura