When I was an elementary school kid, I worried. In fact, I worried so much I can distinctly remember my mom telling me on multiple occasions, “You’re going to get an ulcer by the time you’re fifteen!” Well, thankfully that never happened, but as I grew up, I continued to be a fairly anxious kid. In fact, it wasn’t until I became a Christian at the age of nineteen and started reading passages like...
At a Christian bookseller’s trade show, I met Chuck. He was a salesman at one of the publisher’s booths. When he discovered I was the author of a book on separation, he asked if I had a few minutes to talk. He explained that he and his wife were not living in separate residences but were separated within their own house. She wanted a divorce. He described a number of efforts he had made to try to...
The church was packed. The music was loud. Lily clasped her hands over her ears and started to shake. Her father gave her a pair of earphones and took her outside where Lily waved her hands in front of her eyes and slowly calmed down. Two boys came over. The older, about fifteen years of age, said, “Hi. I don’t like the music so loud either. I wear earphones too.” Lily ignored him but her father...
One of my responsibilities as a pastor is to provide compassionate counseling to those in need. One of the greatest values to my life is that I am telling others exactly what I need to hear. I believe I have resisted some sin and dealt with other sin faster because I was often confronted by the Scripture I was sharing with someone else. This applies to parenting as well. As parents, we hear...
