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After this exhortation by his wife, Tim Keller has prayed with her every night since …
I’m convicted. Maybe this will help Fred and me to get back into a better pattern ourselves: Scraps of Thoughts on Daily Prayer It’s all great. But this paragraph caught me: “The last form of prayer that I do daily is prayer with my wife, Kathy. About nine years ago Kathy and I were contemplating the fact that we had largely failed to pray together over the years. Then Kathy exhorted me like this … … I realized she was right. And for some reason, the penny dropped for us both, and we can’t remember missing a night since.” (Thought I was going to give the punchline away? Nope.…
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Capture It or It Will Capture You
Yesterday I enjoyed a great conversation with a friend. We talked about a zillion things, one of them being the need to “capture” all of our “to-do’s” in some way or another. For some people, this means CLUTTER. They get magazines and think “I need to read that”, catalogs (“I might want something in there”), bills (“Must pay that”), party invites (“Must respond”), gifts (“Don’t forget to send a thank you note”), random mailings (“I should really get off of that mailing list”) … and then they keep all of those items “OUT” because otherwise, they might forget to do XYZ. The problem, of course, being that once you have…
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Save Your Marriage — TALK
Do you find any irony in the fact that I found this article on the IX Marks blog yesterday: Save Your Marriage — TALK (Seriously!) Gave myself a task for today to put the link up for you … And then Fred and I spent pretty much every minute of last night and thus far this morning fighting? You know. “Talking”—to be sure. But also really REALLY not wanting to keep talking. (Fred and I are both prone to flight. Big time.) But we kept trying until late in the night. Slept fitfully. Woke up and kept trying some more. Until finally our need to take care of little girls…
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Training Our Children to Use Technology to God’s Glory
This is very interesting to me: Training Our Children to Use Technology for God’s Glory I can’t commend or endorse it yet because I haven’t read/watched it. But I am interested …
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Children with Special Needs
Thanks yet again to Challies.com for introducing me to the Elisha Foundation (“providing refreshment and encouragement to families caring for people with special needs”): And for reminding me to pray for our own denomination’s similar ministry—The MNA Special Needs Ministry. Please do consider introducing these resources to your church. And if you are in the PCA, I strongly urge you to ask your leaders to financially support our MNA Special Needs Ministry. Thanks, friends! — Tara B.
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Preaching to Four Groups: Weary, Wandering, Lazy, Lost
Kevin DeYoung has a great post today on preaching the whole counsel of Scripture by being mindful of the variances of people in your church: Preaching to the Whole Choir In it, he talks about four categories of people: “The Weary, The Wandering, The Lazy, The Lost.” As I read it, I appreciated its (intended) application of pastors and sermons. But I also couldn’t help but think of its application even as a layperson: – What happens when I am overly confrontational with someone who is weary, wounded, fearful, hurt? I crush the bruised reed. But what if I fail to have the courage to be confrontational with a Christian…
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Fearful Saints Fresh Courage Take
God Moves in a Mysterious Way (William Cowper) God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable mines Of never-failing skill He treasures up His bright designs, And works His sovereign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste,…
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Warnings Against Quarreling
Pastor Anyabwile has a worthwhile read over at PureChurch: A Brief Compendium of Paul’s Warnings Against Quarreling In it, he asks us if we know how many times Paul warns against quarreling in just three pastoral epistles (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus). Can you guess before you click over? I gave a guess and was WAY off. It’s really striking to see them all there, one after the other. As Pastor Anyabwile says, they really drive home what Paul said in Galatians 5:15: “If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” So sad. But so true. May…
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Church is Optional
“Telling people that being part of the local church is optional for the health of the Christian, is like telling a married couple they can replace living together with being friends on Facebook to grow closer and become One as God intends.” Carlos Griego (HT: TakeYourVitaminZ)
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Run – Don’t Walk – to Buy “The Help” (but only if you like to lose yourself in a GREAT book …)
In a way I haven’t experienced since staying up ’til 4AM reading Ghost Soldiers in a hotel bathroom (so as to not inconvenience my co-instructor and hotel roommate way back when I was still on staff with Peacemaker Ministries and we were teaching at an Advanced Training Practicum) … I cannot put this book down! The Help The characters are absolutely FASCINATING. None of that annoying, stock-character, try to get us to believe a person is boring by using the word “boring” to describe them, horribly-written way. I not only feel like I can actually SEE and KNOW these people—I want to know them MORE. I wish I could chat…
