Laudable Linkage

Posted on November 29, 2025 by Barbara Harper

I have just a short list of good reads to share this week. Most of them have to do with Thanksgiving, but that’s all right–we can apply Thanksgiving lessons year round.

The Other Side of Human Rights, HT to Challies. “We’ve forgotten something our ancestors knew: there is a necessary flip-side to human rights. If I have the right to be treated fairly and respectfully, then that means you have the responsibility to treat me that way. It also means that I have the responsibility to treat you that way. And just like that, another R word has slipped in beside our golden rights: responsibility. Responsibility is not a popular word. It sounds like duty and obligation, and those concepts aren’t trending right now. But if you look closely, every single right we claim has responsibility attached to it.”

Corrupt Communication a Sign of Corrupt Hearts. “Whether scatological locker room talk, or taking God’s name in vain, or gossip, or lies, or cruel insults, there are things we say that stink. And these utterances reveal a corruption or rottenness that goes deeper than the lips, the tongue, or the mouth. Jesus observed, ‘Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh.’ (Mt. 12:34) Our words expose our inner attitudes and thoughts. We say what we say because we are what we are.”

Gratitude In a Hostile Land. “Even in this inconvenience, I had a choice. Interruptions like these reveal the state of our hearts. When unexpected circumstances come crashing in, are prayer and gratitude the conductor of our lives—or are they the caboose? Yet prayer and gratitude aren’t only for happy times; they are for every time, every moment, and every day.”

Forget Not His Faithfulness: Thanksgiving Begins with Remembering. “The danger of a hurried life is that when we don’t pause and reflect, we don’t remember. And when we don’t remember, gratitude struggles to make its way to the surface. But when we take time to look back, we begin to see what hurry had hidden all along: the grace of God, His unexpected provision and answered prayers, and His steady faithfulness woven through every ordinary day.”

Thanksgiving Gratitude: Receiving God’s Gifts with Joy. “One year Larry picked up some small gifts for some visiting children. Their delight in receiving them gave us as much, if not more, pleasure than if we’d received gifts. This reminds me how important receiving God’s gifts is to both our hearts and His. Gratitude is a gift. If our hearts swell when someone enjoys the gift we’ve chosen for them, I imagine God also smiles when we appreciate His gifts.”

If you think of this world as a place simply intended for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place for training and correction and it’s not so bad.–C. S. Lewis

Laudable Linkage

Posted on November 22, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Some of the blog posts that stood out to me this week:

Why Christian Kids Leave the Faith. “Few things are sadder to witness than people who once professed faith leaving it all behind. This is especially true when those people were raised in Christian homes by God-fearing parents. These children were given every opportunity to put their faith in Jesus but determined instead to turn their backs on him. Why would they make such a tragic choice?”

Beauty Bears Witness to God, HT to the Story Warren. “Art is haunted by beauty, and beautiful things point beyond themselves to more perfect beauty. Psalm 50 says, “Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines forth” (v. 2). We’re meant to trace this world’s splendor back to its Creator.”

What to Consider When a Loved One Is Critically Ill, HT to Challies. “The Bible remains a lamp to our feet and a light to our path even in the ICU (Ps. 119:105). Although Scripture doesn’t explicitly mention CPR or ventilators, it does offer key guidance on the sanctity of mortal life, God’s sovereignty over life and death, mercy, and our resurrection hope. These four truths can provide a framework as we strive to honor God at a loved one’s bedside.”

Gratitude In the Midst of Grief: Finding Hope in the Lord’s Kindness. “Gratitude doesn’t cancel grief—it coexists with it, transforming sorrow into worship.”

Three Thanksgivings In Heaven. “While we celebrate Thanksgiving on earth below, what’s going on in heaven? We could answer this question in part by examining the three instances of the word “thanks” in the book of Revelation.” Interesting–I never thought about this before.

No Heart Too Hard: Thanksgiving and the Power of God’s Mercy. “Somewhere along the way, have you stopped expecting that God is able to move in their story? What if this year, gratitude includes trusting that God is still softening hearts—even the ones that seem impossible to crack open?”

Why Contentment in Christ Is the Best Gift This Season. “Paul found contentment in prison. Eve lost it in paradise.”

Negativity Bias and the Praying Imagination, HT to Challies. “Negative information has a greater impact on our thoughts and emotions than positive. If you give a person three bits of good news and one bit of bad news, he or she will likely zoom in on the bad news so much that the good news has little impact. Bad news sticks like Velcro.” The author shares the Christian antidote to negativity bias.

Just for fun, 27 Best Thanksgiving Facts to Impress Your Family, HT to So She Reads. One example–apparently Black Friday was originally called that to discourage shopping on that day.

Trials are intended to make us think, to wean us from the world, to send us to the Bible, to drive us to our knees.–J. C. Ryle

Laudable Linkage

Posted on November 15, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Some of the good reads found this week:

Can Satan Put Thoughts Into Our Heads? “‘Can Satan himself put thoughts into our heads?’ Yes, he can and he does. And of course, the urgent questions then are, How do we recognize them? And how do we resist them and not get controlled by them?”

10 Things to Pray for Children Who Have Walked Away from Jesus, HT to Challies. “God is never too busy or preoccupied to receive you when you bring your burdens into his presence. God cares for your children. That is such an encouragement when we are struggling to persevere in prayer. But it’s hard to know what to pray sometimes; or we’ve been praying for so many years that we’ve run out of steam and lost momentum. So, to reinvigorate your prayers for your children, here are ten ways you can pray.”

Making Space for Others In Our Conversations. “I walk into church and spot a new person. I know I should go over and engage her, but such actions often end in stilted exchanges or awkward pauses. Making conversational space for people I don’t know well takes much more effort than the comfort of finding my seat or chatting easily with friends. Do I take the path of least resistance and avoid eye contact? Maybe I offer an acknowledging smile, but continue to my familiar chair? Or do I practice Christ-like hospitality and in love, make my way over to her?” The author includes ideas for conversation starters besides the usual “How are you?” and “What do you do?”

To My Almost-Adult Kids: Don’t Be Afraid of These Three Words, HT to Challies. “I try not to tell you about all my worries. But one fear that I want you to know about? I worry you will be afraid to say these three words.”

How to Provoke Your Children to Anger. “Apparently if you want to be a good parent, the thing that Paul is most concerned about is that you not provoke your children to anger. The somewhat frustrating part of this, though, is that he doesn’t stop to explain what he means by this phrase or explain how it should be done! So what does it look like to provoke your children to anger?”

The Cost of Slowing Down. “Recently a friend asked me when we start ‘locking in’ activities for our daughters. ‘When does it become their thing?’ he wondered, meaning when do we encourage them to commit to a single sport and dig in deep.”

How Can We Bless the Lord? “God’s blessings abound, but we can’t return these favors because He needs nothing from us. Yet, Scripture contains the concept of blessing the Lord.”

10 Ways to Pray for Your Pastor. “I’m sure a million requests could be added, but here is a brief post to offer at least 10 ways that you can pray for your pastor, compiled by a pastor.”

Time Is NOT Money: Redeeming the Hours God Gives Us. “While many modern translations have chosen to steer away from the financial metaphor, Paul’s Greek word choice for ‘making the most’ of time is actually a money word, used like our English word ransom or redeem. Thus, we can legitimately make the case that time and money have correlations. But let’s hit pause right there and consider the many contrasts between the two.”

The Art of Thankfulness. I enjoyed seeing a piece of art here that was discussed in Russ Ramsey’s Rembrandt Is In the Wind: Henry Ossawa Tanner’s The Thankful Poor. This post ties in observations about the painting with Philippians 4: 6-8.

God uses people who are weak and feeble enough to lean on Him.–Hudson Taylor

Laudable Linkage

Posted on November 8, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Some of the posts that spoke to my heart this week:

Trust and Delight. “Trusting God doesn’t mean we stop working; it means we stop worrying about outcomes beyond our control. When you trust God, you trade anxious striving for patient obedience.”

Noisy World, Quiet Heart. “It can be hard to have a moment’s peace amidst the noise of the world. Constantly bombarded with notifications, updates, emails, texts, podcasts, and videos, we often allow all the ‘noise’ to take over our thoughts and hearts. As a result, we’re anxious, sleep-deprived, nervous, and sinfully angry. God is not the author of noisome, disquieted hearts. He is the God of peace.”

Comfort for the Heart that Can’t Pray. “I knew I needed to pray, but the only words I could muster were, ‘Jesus, help!’—followed by a crushing silence. My heart was numb, my head was swimming, and, on top of it all, I was frustrated with my own inability. Why couldn’t I figure out how to pray in such a dire situation? What was wrong with me?“

Praying for Help When You Are Helpless. “When Jehoshaphat was told that a “great multitude” was at Engedi (only about 25 miles from Jerusalem), he was afraid. What did Jehoshaphat do in his fear? He prayed.”

Don’t Wait for Tragedy Before You Talk to Your Kids About Death, HT to Challies. “Our children know that our world is broken. And if we want to teach the whole witness of Scripture and speak precisely about the gospel, we’re going to have to talk about death with the children in our homes and churches. Talking to kids about death gives them an opportunity to worship God in light of Christ’s sacrifice and to seek comfort in him as they live in our broken world.”

Losing Our Words: The Decline of Reading and the Rise of Reels, HT to Challies. “It’s not just that people don’t read books anymore; it’s that we don’t know how to read deeply. We skim, we scroll, we glance. Our minds, constantly fed on instant content, become restless and impatient with slow thought. The result is a generation that finds reading effortful—and reflection uncomfortable..”

The Antidote to Unmet Expectations this Thanksgiving. “It isn’t always easy to go from what our minds thought it would or should be like to what God has in mind instead. Unmet expectations (even ones we didn’t realize we created!) can be crushing and draining.”

Give Your Best Away, HT to Challies. “Quality matters, especially when giving to others. Surprisingly, I have been critiqued for this.”

Announcing the 2026 Bible Reading Challenge. “The challenge is to read the entire Bible within 90 days. If you wish, you may begin today. Regardless of when you begin, your 90-day period must end no later than March 31, 2026. Once you complete your reading, you may submit an entry form (see post) to enter a prize drawing.”

The best way of increasing our knowledge of God s infinite nature, is by the reverent study of His Word. It is a flimsy religion which discounts doctrine. What the bones are to the body, doctrine is to our moral and spiritual life. F. B. Meyer, from the August 4 reading in Our Daily Walk

Laudable Linkage

Posted on November 1, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Some of the good reads found this week:

Have You Counted the Cost? HT to Challies. “Two things can be true at once. The gospel is absolutely free, and yet the gospel costs us everything.”

Why Do the New Testament Letters Sound Different from the Gospels? “The gospels do sound quite different from the New Testament letters. The simple parables and catchy teaching of Jesus give way to long doctrinal treatises on justification by faith, a theology of the body of Christ with its many members, or instructions for how households and churches should be governed. So how do we explain the difference? How did we go from stories about lost sheep, people planting seeds, or runaway sons to exalted discourses on theology?” I never thought about this before. This article gives some great answers.

I Will, If the Lord Permits, HT to Challies. “Here even the apostle Paul himself admits that his plans are fallible and must therefore be flexible. ‘I have made my very best plans,’ Paul says, ‘and am operating according to them to the best of my ability—but all the while in the recognition that my plans may not be God’s plans.'”

You’re Their Mom or Dad, Not Their Pastor or Evangelist. “Parents who love the Lord naturally long for their children to do the same. Their ‘heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved’ (Romans 10:1), and rightly so. And so they share the gospel with their kids and earnestly pray for them. But what are they to do when such attempts do not bear immediate fruit?”

Unreasonable Hospitality, HT to So She Reads. “This idea of unreasonable hospitality is found throughout the Bible. Think of killing the fatted calf for a stranger traveling through: giving of your best to someone you do not know and may never meet again; think of the widow’s last cruse of oil given to a prophet; think of five loaves and two fishes feeding 5000 people. This is the very embodiment of unreasonable hospitality.”

Story of Grace, HT to So She Reads. I have the famous print of an older man praying over the dinner table, as well as a companion piece of an older woman, in my dining area. It was neat to read the story behind it.

“Fear is a liar and a thief. A liar, because it fills our minds with
hypothetical horrors, and a thief because it steals precious hours we
can never get back and strips them of peace.” ~ Jeanne Damoff

Laudable Linkage

Posted on October 25, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Some of the good reads found this week:

Awaken Your Hunger, HT to Challies. “Like tamping down my appetite as I’m tasting and assembling ingredients for dinner, I find myself quieting my hunger for God by tasting too many things that don’t satisfy. Sometimes it’s not the quality so much as the quantity: a half hour of mindless scrolling here, a couple of hours of Netflix bingeing there, the incessant input of a podcast or audiobook every time it gets quiet. I keep filling up my soul with so many things that leave me hungry but not for what I need.”

What Martha’s Problem Really Was. “Martha’s problem had nothing to do with her to-do list and everything to do with how she handled her thoughts. Luke didn’t include this account to caution women away from vacuuming, doing dishes, or cooking a nice meal for company. He included it as a warning against unguarded thoughts. Thankfully, he does include a solution.”

You Are “The Next.” “Who will be the next Nancy? The next Charlie? The next John, James, Voddie, or Kay? This may come as a surprise, but there is an answer. The answer is no one. And it’s also . . . you. Confused? Let me explain.”

When Dad Will Not Lead in the Home, HT to Challies. “One of the saddest verses of the Bible is Genesis 3:6 where God’s Word records, ‘[Eve] took of it and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.’ In other words, Adam was standing with Eve when Satan tempted her. The one who should have defended his wife from the tempter, didn’t do anything. He was passive. And that’s what we’re talking about. Instead of spiritual leadership and initiative, we have passivity. How do we approach this problem?”

DO Something When You Are Maligned, HT to Challies. “When stressed through the ill-will or stinging insults and persistent opposition by someone who wants to cause you trouble, we know there is something to think. We are to think the truth about God and ourselves. We don’t take their evaluation as true, but only God’s. Also, we are to think of God’s loving and purposeful sovereignty over his children, meaning that difficulties can bring about good results in character and progress for the gospel. But there is also something to DO.”

The Worst Kind of Parenting Advice, HT to Challies. “I’m grateful to God that I learned early on to chew the meat and spit out the bones regarding much of the Christian parenting advice I was given, and instead to do what was right for our kids and our family. But when it comes to formulaic parenting advice, it sure is interesting that the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Social Media Pushes Pornography on Children Within Minutes, Report Finds, HT to Challies. “Social media is now one of the primary pipelines to porn addiction for both children and young adults. Global Witness, a campaign organization that investigates the impact of Big Tech on human rights, recently conducted a number of tests to determine how quickly children could access pornography on social media platforms. According to the Guardian, Global Witness conducted one test before the implementation of the U.K.’s Online Safety Act in July, and one after. In just a few clicks, TikTok directed children’s accounts to pornography.”

“Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.”–Charles Spurgeon

Laudable Linkage

Posted on October 18, 2025 by Barbara Harper

I have just a few reads to share this week:

Set Your Heart, HT to Challies. “’I just don’t want to be a Pharisee.‘ This is normally how it starts. There is a good impulse to want to avoid self-righteousness or gospel-less obedience. But this good impulse quickly gets co-opted by the devil.”

5 Ways to Worship God in Everyday Life. “Worship includes both words and actions. It is more than a feeling, an experience, an environment, or a ritual. Worship is communicating through what we say and what we do that God is most important in our lives. How do we keep God first every day?”

The World Needs Evangelists with Cheerful Confidence, HT to Challies. “Christians who share the gospel today shouldn’t imagine themselves trapped in a pit of defeater beliefs, scrambling to dig their way up to level ground just to make a case. No. It’s the world that’s in the pit. The believer stands on solid ground, secure on the rock, and calls out with confidence, ‘Come up higher. There is light, there is air, there is life up here.'”

The Mother I Meant to Be, HT to Challies. “Be the best mother you can, but sanctification—for you and them—comes slowly. You will not be enough, and the good in your children will sometimes be in spite of you rather than because of you. That may sound depressing now, but it will be a relief later.”

1,440 Jewels: Mastering the 1,440 Minutes God Gives You. “We all live on the same 24-hour clock, but have you ever paused to consider the sheer number of minutes we are gifted? There are 1,440 minutes in every single day. That’s not just a mathematical fact; for the Christian, it’s a profound spiritual truth. Each minute is a tiny, precious container, filled with potential for worship, service, growth, and connection with our Creator.”

Of course you’re not up to the task, that’s why you’ve been given the presence, promises and provisions of Jesus. Paul David Tripp

Laudable Linkage

Posted on October 11, 2025 by Barbara Harper

I found several thought-provoking reads this week:

Why Looking Backwards Keeps You Safe, HT to Challies. “When I face a vexing theological question, I start with what I know for sure and use that to organize the field, eliminate options, and clarify the task. I move from the known to the unknown. In this case, two sound convictions guided my assessment of the ‘revival.'”

Your Father’s Care Is Round You There, HT to Challies. “Good hymns, old and new, have a way of exposing and strengthening our hearts across a seemingly infinite variety of situations. They present us with general truths, anchored in God’s Word, that penetrate into the darkest and most complicated crevices of our circumstances.”

Praying for the Impossible and the Simple. When we pray for God to save our lost loved ones, we’re praying for Him to do something only He can do, but something which He delights to do.

God Is Our Guide on Paths We Did not Choose. HT to Challies. “When I was fifteen, I made a promise to the Lord that I would obediently go wherever he led. Back then, I was sure he’d call me to an impoverished country to serve as a missionary. I was open to that. Instead, he has led me into a life marked by physical pain. It’s not exactly what I had in mind. . . . sometimes God guides us to places we could never have imagined for ourselves. His plans for us are good, but they are not always easy. Even so, I’ve learned that when God calls us to walk through a shadowed valley, he has promised to go with us. We can trust his guidance because he provides what we need to persevere through every valley.”

How Reading the Bible Every Day Changes Everything. “It did, indeed, take me fifteen months to finish, but I finished. I did something most Christians will never do. I read the entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. In the process, I discovered something unexpected—the key to a dynamic Christian life. Little by little, as I read through my Bible, amazing things began to happen. Some of them were so subtle I didn’t notice them at first. Others took years to fully manifest, but they transformed my life.”

Truth in Small Bites Is Truth Nonetheless. “When life takes a turn, most of us tend to push Bible reading aside until our circumstances return to normal. If you’re not able to sit down at your kitchen table for a quiet hour of in-depth study, you don’t even crack open God’s Word. Somewhere along the way, you’ve told yourself that if you’re not able to feast, you shouldn’t eat at all, not realizing that a handful of almonds in the middle of the night is far better than allowing your soul to starve.”

We Still Need Gentlemen. “We all saw the pictures of men who stood by and watched while 23 year old Iryna Zarutska was stabbed to death on a bus. We saw those photos and wondered how we’ve come to this place in history, a time when men have lost their protective instinct. According to scripture, men were created to protect and treasure those more vulnerable than themselves. God calls men to be strong, to be heroes, to be courageous and caring. Sometimes when we turn on the news, we begin to realize that many men have lost their sense of purpose in favor of apathy or self-preservation.”

Watch Your Language, HT to Challies. “Nasty language is a black-magic wand. When you touch it to a person,place or thing, you perform an act of mild (and sometimes not so mild) denigration. When you use everyone’s favorite vulgar word to denote the sexual act, you reduce the act. You gut the spirit life out of it. With profanity, you denigrate what you feel is overvalued. You try to cut it down to size. … When you curse compulsively you produce a view of the world that’s smaller and meaner.”

Welcoming Others with Gospel Hospitality, HT to Challies. “When we hear the word ‘hospitality,’ we may think only of inviting people into our home. The thought of doing so may create a feeling of panic deep within us as we think about cleaning the house or fixing an elaborate meal. Hospitality can feel risky as we think about letting strangers and even friends in our homes and our lives. But gospel hospitality says nothing about a clean house or fancy meals. In fact, nothing about the gospel is fancy or flashy.”

Let Kids Read Dangerous Stories: 3 Thoughts on the Rise of Cozy Fiction, HT to Challies. “I’ve begun noticing a trend in popular fiction books over the past few years, and that’s the word ‘cozy’. Cozy romance, cozy mystery, cozy fantasy. We’re surrounded by books and stories of picture-perfect relationships, dreamy Hallmark settings, and adventures-that-aren’t-really adventurous.” I agree with this writer that these kinds of stories are okay, but not realistic. I like the G. K. Chesterton quote she shares: “Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.”

How God loves us: not because we are lovable but because He is love,
not because He needs to receive but He delights to give.–C. S. Lewis

Laudable Linkage

Posted on October 4, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Here’s a short list of good reads found this week:

Can I Trust the Bible? “For years, my Bible reading raised more questions than answers. In college, I joined a small group Bible study that changed everything. These women read the Bible as if it meant what it said. Do I hear a ‘Duh’?”

Every Excuse Is a Reason to Meditate on Scripture. HT to Challies. Some of the excuses that seem to keep us from reading the Bible are the very reasons we need to read it.

We’ve Got a Hunger Problem: Learning to Long for God’s Word. “We’ve got a hunger problem—or rather a fullness problem. Our lives are so packed and cluttered that we barely notice the empty place in our hearts that only God can fill. If we never feel the ache of real hunger, if we never experience longing in the quiet or the discomfort of waiting, we will never crave what is meant to nourish our souls. So, how do we prepare our hearts for the feast of God’s Word?”

I Am not Charlie Kirk. “I can understand why people want to be like Charlie but the more I started hearing people chanting ‘I am Charlie Kirk’, the more uncomfortable it felt. There was, and will always be, just one Charlie Kirk… and that’s what made him so special. And I want to believe that even Charlie himself would tell you… it’s not him you want to be like… but it’s the Christ who lived in him and through him. And just like there was only one Charlie Kirk… there’s also only one of you.”

Do Not Neglect the Give You Have, HT to Challies. “You may not have big dreams for your life. You may not expect God to do great things through you. You may seem, like Saul, ‘little in your own eyes’ (1 Samuel 15:17) — not very talented or charismatic, not much of a leader. But in the Lord Jesus Christ, God has given you a gift. And as Paul told the young Timothy, so God tells his young men today: ‘Do not neglect the gift you have’ (1 Timothy 4:14).”

No Service Is Too Small, HT to Redeeming Productivity. “Most days we don’t get married, receive a positive pregnancy test, or achieve a breakthrough in our field. Most days, we’re commuting, studying, parenting, working, doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, or paying the bills. Do those activities count in God’s eyes? Does the mundane matter to him?”

Grace for the Birth Story You Didn’t Expect, HT to Challies. “The truth of it is, things in the world don’t work as they should. Your friend’s birth story might be one of empowerment and candlelight, while yours might be one of operating rooms and oxygen masks. You may not even have been conscious when your child entered the world. You may question if you made the right decisions. Or, if it was an emergency situation, if those in control made the right decisions.”

“When you kill time, remember that it has no resurrection.” ― A.W. Tozer

Laudable Linkage

Posted on September 27, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Here are some noteworthy reads found this week:

Whispers of Eternity: Hope Beyond Death. “The Bible teaches that physical death is not the end. Every one of us—believer and unbeliever alike—will continue to exist somewhere. Scripture is clear: we will spend eternity either with God in heaven or separated from Him in eternal torment (Matthew 25:46).”

America: From Civility to Savagery? “The way that Christians responded to the Aucas in 1956 can guide believers as they respond to Americans in 2025. Rather than rise up to take their revenge against that Ecuadorian tribe, Christians chose to seek reconciliation. Today is no time to meet political violence with more violence by mimicking the perpetrators. Now is the time for believers to be what they want others to become, leading by example (1 Corinthians 11:1).”

A Question for All the Teens Who Saw Charlie Kirk Die. “I just want to ask the question: Are you okay? I want to consider what you saw and acknowledge that it may be sitting heavily on your heart and may be troubling your soul. I want to acknowledge that you might be frightened about your future now that you have witnessed a man being assassinated for simply expressing his political and religious viewpoints. With these things in mind, I have three brief matters I would like you to consider.”

The Blood of Charlie Kirk Speaks: A Missionary Perspective. “When horrible events of such import happen and you are far away from home, it lends itself to a different perspective on those events. We have been surprised by how much of a global event this is.”

Talking to Your Family about Your Coming Death. “The atmosphere in the hall with his wife, son, sister, mother and all the extended family was remarkable. There was sorrow, but not despair, surprise but not shock. This family was prepared for this moment. It was not the case a year ago.”

5 Ways Love Is the Secret to Better Bible Teaching, HT to Knowable Word. Though this is aimed at Bible teachers, I think it can apply to writers, speakers, bloggers–anyone who tries to share God’s truth with others.

I’m Triggered, HT to Challies. “In a world overcome with blaming and discrediting, Christians need to pause and ask how we contribute to divisive discourse. One subtle way that we disengage and cause further disunity is by developing ‘hot-topic’ words or phrases that we dislike, and then implicitly, or even explicitly, dismissing someone’s message (or even dismissing them) when they use these terms.”

Health Anxiety and Avoidance: Why Running From Fear Makes It Worse, HT to Challies. “Avoidance feels safe. When something makes us anxious, the simplest solution seems to be: stay away. Don’t go to the appointment. Don’t open the bill. Don’t step into a situation that makes your stomach tighten and your heart race. . . . But here’s the catch: avoidance doesn’t solve anxiety. It strengthens it. Like feeding a stray cat, avoidance keeps coming back for more. The more we avoid, the more powerful the fear becomes.”

This One, She’s Mine. I actually came to this post from a link that was supposed to go somewhere else, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading this sweet testimony.

“Incline us, O God, to think humbly of ourselves, to be severe only in the examination of our own conduct, to consider our fellow-creatures with kindness, and to judge of all they say and do with that charity which we would desire from them ourselves” (Jane Austen).