When Tina’s husband left, she was devastated. Even though she and her husband had struggled with problems, she was shocked that he would actually leave her. When she asked him why he was leaving and what he planned to do, he had no answers. His only response—he needed space. This common beginning to many unplanned separations is the first surprising reality about marital separation. Although it...
When my kids were little, we read books every night. Some they picked, and some I picked. One series that I never chose, but they often wanted to read was The Berenstain Bears. I thought the books were a bit moralistic, and Papa Bear was a bumbler who needed lots of direction from Mama Bear. But my children loved the bear world, the true-to-life problems, the silly things that happened, and the...
Psalm 90:11–12 reminds us to number our days so that we can present to God hearts of wisdom. Ephesians 5:15 tells us to be wise, making the most of our time. Scripture often calls us to use each day to the fullest. But when we have a major event looming on the calendar, it can often make us forget the importance of today. Your deployment can seem so overwhelming that the days slip by without your...
As you think about the Christian life as a lifelong process of change, what things stand out as the key ingredients for change? Most of us focus on the “means of grace”: Bible study, prayer, fellowship, reading Christian books, the sacraments, service, and witness. God has provided these as means to an end, but they are not the end! All the means of grace are good and necessary for change, but...
“The gospel” is a phrase that Christians often use without fully understanding its significance. We speak the language of the gospel, but we rarely apply the gospel to every aspect of our lives. Yet this is exactly what God wants for us. The gospel is nothing less than “the power of God” (Romans 1:16). In Colossians 1:6, the apostle Paul commends the Colossian church because the gospel has been...
