As adults, we look for ways to protect our youth. We protect them harm, abuse, bullying, drugs and all kinds of hazards. We can, should, and must look for ways to equip them for the perils that will cross their path. We can try to shelter them from harm, but we will find that the danger our children face cannot always be kept at bay. Scripture tells us: “The good person out of the good treasure...
Not so long ago I was talking with someone who said she’d taken on almost a hundred-thousand dollars of college debt for a degree in the humanities. As an English major myself, I’m all for people studying good and beautiful things, even when they’re not obviously or immediately useful. But the person who’d gotten into this much debt regretted it profoundly. She felt hopeless that she’d ever get...
God’s words seem quite far away when you or someone you love labors under a psychiatric problem. Depression, panic, bipolar disorder, ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, and dozens of other well-known diagnoses—none of them appear in Scripture, so we tend to look other places for help. That trip into Scripture, however, is a critical one. Medication and expert help can relieve symptoms for some...
The email came from my friend Doug (not his real name) asking if I could meet with him and his wife to help them iron out some issues in their marriage. “I mentioned to you briefly at church that I am leaving my job. Although the reasons are numerous, part of it is to work on our marriage. I thought we had some minor cracks but Lauren feels differently. She sees some deep flaws and problems...
You’ve likely heard, “Most people who abandon their faith do so because of personal pain, not theological confusion.” When someone questions, “Do I really want to be a Christian? Is the Bible true? Would life be better if I let go of my faith?” it’s usually not because they are stumped by the complexity of the Trinity. We ask faith-shaking questions when life is overwhelmingly hard: our child...
