Category Archives: Laudable Linkage

Laudable Linkage

Posted on by

I just have a short list today—I’m behind on my blog reading. But I hope you’ll find something to encourage you here.

Bulletproof, HT to Challies. “As time passed, I gathered up frightening moments, storing them like scalding stones in a knapsack, hefting them with me moment-by-moment through life, and right into my early days of motherhood. As long as I remembered what could happen, and kept on the lookout for any potential dangers, maybe I could keep my little family safe. An exhausting way to live, I tell you. But after so many years it felt normal.”

Church Hurt. “Anyone who has been involved in a faith community over a long period of time sadly may know the very painful feelings of rejection, criticism, and disillusionment. Church hurt can stings like no other. Why is that?”

Shining a Light in the Darkest of Times. “My most recent fascination holds me captive at dusk. Sweet childhood memories delightfully dance across my mind’s eye as the fireflies gaily float across the lawn. Lately returned to our area after several years absence, they offered more than reminiscent delight. Visible only as darkness approaches, their light speaks a truth needful for today: that of shining a light in the darkest of times.”

Outside the Camp, Part 3: What It Means. Dan Olinger gives insight on what it means that Jesus was crucified “outside the camp” and why we’re told to go to Him “outside the camp” as well.

Give to Those Who Ask. “If someone were to walk up to you today, declare their poverty, and ask you for help, what should you do?”

Laudable Linkage

Posted on by

Here are some of the good reads found this week:

My Reconstructed Faith, HT to Challies. This is encouraging. “What I don’t often hear are stories of those who have reconstructed their faith. Since I couldn’t find many, I thought I would offer my own story of reconstruction after I abandoned Christianity for progressive Christianity.”

Debunk 8 Abortion Myths. “While Christians rejoice to see a step taken toward justice for unborn life, many of our neighbors are experiencing the decision as an existential threat. That angst gets channeled in attacks against religious groups, blaming them for what they understand to be a hypocritical and crippling national tragedy. Why are they so afraid? What can we do to help our friends, family, and coworkers understand why people of faith celebrate what they lament?”

A Declaration of Dependence, HT to Challies. “I am incredibly grateful for and deeply benefit from the Declaration of Independence penned by Thomas Jefferson; however, my soul needs to be stamped with deeper declaration daily: a declaration of dependence.”

Community: A Struggle to Fit In, HT to Challies. “When it comes to community in the church, many people feel like onlookers. For many, deep fellowship seems far off. Some feel excluded because they “do not fit in,” and others are unsure how to engage. In the church of Jesus, this should not be.”

40-Year-Old Moses vs. 80-Year-Old Moses, HT to The Story Warren. “Moses has gone from It makes sense that God would use me to Who am I that God would use me? And in that change, he demonstrates he’s now ready.”

Transformation of a Transgender Teen, HT to Challies. “Eva was in a church luncheon when she got an email from her 12-year-old daughter Grace. (Their names have been changed.) ‘Mom and Dad, I need to tell you I’m not actually a girl,’ she read. ‘My pronouns are they/them.'”

Pilgrimage to Dust, HT to Challies. “As saints united to Christ by faith, we follow after our Savior. Our bodies will continue to weaken in this life as we walk each day closer to death, but our story doesn’t end there either. Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, we know we too walk towards something greater.”

In a World of Loud, Be a Whisperer. “There are so many women who seek to gain control over others by being loud. (Often, me included.) By demanding . . . by parading . . . by yelling . . . But the women who have had the most influence in my own life have taken a much softer approach.”

Chapters, Verses, and Their Five Avoidable Challenges. Chapter and verse divisions weren’t in the original manuscripts of the Bible. They were added later and are extremely helpful for finding references. But they can cause some problems, too, if we use them the wrong way.

The Unappreciated Blessing of Busyness. “Is busyness always a bad thing? Like every time? Always? Hmm. I think we can nuance this better. See, there’s a difference between busy and hurry. Busy is when you have a lot on your plate. Hurry is when you have too much on your plate.”

But we also sometimes have to learn How to Graciously Say No. “I’m a people pleaser. So in the moment, it’s easier just to say ‘yes’ when someone asks me to do something. But ‘yes’ is a check future me must cash. And that’s when the problems start…”

Why Would You Steal My Words When I Might Give Them Freely, HT to Linda. On plagiarism, intentional or accidental.

I can’t decide whether this is remarkable or scary. Maybe both. HT to Steve Laube.

Have a good Saturday!

Edited to add: I meant to mention that I’m being interviewed on Kurt and Kate Mornings on Moody Radio Florida on Tuesday, July 12, around 8:10 a.m. EDT or shortly thereafter. They want to talk about my blog post on regret. There’s a link on their page to listen live if you’d like to. Plus I’ll try to have someone record it like we did before. I’d appreciate your prayers!

Laudable Linkage

Posted on by

Here are some of the good reads found this week.

Four Compelling Reasons I Am Pro-Life, HT to Challies. I can echo just about all this. I’d add to the science section that the DNA of an embryo or fetus is separate from its mother’s. So an unborn baby is not just part of the mother’s body.

Life Is Precious, HT to Challies. “Are children a limit on personal autonomy? Yes. There’s no getting around it. They take resources. They need help, care, support, food, time, energy, and the list goes on and on. They need everything supplied to them for a long time. And is there a better way to use autonomy than this?”

Whose Choice? HT to Challies. “In 1973 I was 19 years old and a sophomore in college when the Supreme Court decided the Roe vs Wade case and legalized abortion. Honestly, however, I never expected the Court’s landmark decision to affect me personally.”

Tell God the Unvarnished Story. “Though we profess that God is all-seeing and all-knowing, that he understands not merely the actions of our hands and the thoughts of our minds but even the intentions of our hearts, still we sometimes feel as if we need to hold back from telling him all that we have thought, all that we have done, all that we have desired. Yet if we are to confess our sins before him, we need to confess them all, for he knows them anyway.”

Finding Family, HT to Challies. “God’s family is a precious thing, bound by wine and bread instead of blood and resemblance. Its members don’t dress alike, share a uniform culture or a common language. But whether it be in a building or a living room, whether through candles and liturgy or guitars and blue jeans, whenever believers gather, we belong to each other. And wherever two or more of us come together, Jesus is there.”

When the Mob Shows Up the Monday After Roe, HT to Challies. “Using umbrellas and masks to shield their identities from security cameras, they smashed almost every ground-floor window on the side of the building that hadn’t yet been boarded up and covered the building in vile graffiti aimed specifically at Christians.”

These posts are a few years old, but they were just shared on the Elisabeth Elliot Quotes Facebook page recently: Lar’s and Elisabeth’s Love Story and Elisabeth Elliot’s Final Days.

If You Find Listening to Sermons Boring, Try This, HT to Challies. “During my lifetime I reckon I’ve heard about 4,000 sermons. Often I have been challenged, uplifted, provoked, transformed. Sadly, other times, I have been bored.”

On the Supreme Court Decision to Overturn Roe v. Wade. A look at the legal arguments.

Happy 4th to my fellow Americans! It’s nice that it made for a long weekend this year.

Laudable Linkage

Posted on by

Here are some good reads found this week:

How to Make the Case Against Abortion in Less Than a Minute, HT to Challies. With the Supreme Court ruling on abortion in the news, abortion discussions will multiply. This video helps pare pro-life position to key points.

Confess Your Sins to God When Applying Scripture. “It is good for us to think about the different spheres and directions for our Bible application. But confessing sin is often a necessary step in the process. It is not just that we need a different strategy for loving our neighbor or a new approach to handling gossip. Frequently, we must confess that what we have been doing (or not doing) is offensive to God and deserving of his anger.”

Dear Daughter: On Outrage and Its Remedy. “Outrage is when you get really upset about someone else’s decisions or actions — so upset that you want them to be punished or forced to change. Outrage insists on being heard. It always points a finger but never at itself. It assumes it is the supreme authority on a matter regardless of whether it has any actual knowledge of it. It creates caricatures of its opponents and refuses to acknowledge the complexities of their human souls.”

Teach Us to Number Our Days, HT to Challies. “Psalm 90:12 speaks of ‘numbering our days,’ but like these two toddlers, we often don’t get it right. While we know exactly how many candles should go on our birthday cake (even if we prefer that no one else knew), we still tend to get the math wrong.”

5 Reasons We Should Not Stop Using Male Pronouns for God, or to turn it around, because the title confused me at first: why we should use male pronouns for God. HT to Challies. “It is right to believe that God is transcendent: God is not a man. Even little children learn in the catechism that ‘God is a Spirit and has not a body like men.’ And certainly, in Scripture God’s character and actions are sometimes described using feminine imagery (cf. Isa 49:15). But none of that means we should abandon male pronouns for God.”

How Were the Books of the Bible Chosen? “Inspired Scripture was recognized, not chosen. Genuine works by prolific artists such as Monet and Degas hang in museums because art experts have recognized them to be authentic pieces, not forgeries. They didn’t choose any of the paintings to be a Monet or a Degas. They scrutinized them for the unique signs of the artist’s imprint and recognized them as genuine.”

Sky Painting, HT to Challies. “I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a boring sky. Even when the sky is an unending morass of steely grey cloud that stretches from horizon to horizon, I’ll give you that it’s technically dull, there’s a lack of sunlight, but it’s hardly boring.” I love the conclusion here.

Laudable Linkage

Posted on by

Here are a few of the good reads found this week:

First Love. “As I watched all of this unfold, I also watched what being around this young man did for the members of our church and me. There is something contagious about being around someone with that first love. There were several things I noticed in this man’s life that gave me pause to consider my own spiritual life.”

Why You Should Name and Even Feel Negative Emotions, HT to Challies. “I rarely dealt with or named my emotions—at least not the “negative” ones. They had to be killed, banished, ignored, and stuffed. I learned this from both Christian circles (like the counselor above) and my own fears. I didn’t want others to see my emotions. Negative emotions always equaled sin and weakness in my mind, a reason for people to look down their noses at me. So I tried to kill my negative feelings with kindness—or gratitude. But what if there’s goodness in every emotion—even in the ones we don’t like so much?”

When the Story Doesn’t Have a Happy Ending, HT to Challies. “The ‘successful’ missionaries always have lots of numbers. They fill their newsletters with compelling stories and photographs of large groups of believers. But nobody gives presentations about evangelistic events where no one showed up, or posts a picture of the local pastor who abused his daughter, or writes a newsletter about the exciting convert who just slowly disappears.”

Tyranny Follows Where Truth Fades, HT to Challies. “Having escaped the tyrannical regime of North Korea, where criticism of ‘Dear Leader’ can land you (and your family) in a concentration camp, she never anticipated the thought control she’d find at this elite American university.”

Speaking Truth in Marital Conflict, HT to Challies. “We know that when couples use words like always, never, and only to describe each other’s behavior or to express a complaint, it will not help to resolve their conflict. These words exaggerate and overgeneralize in a way that provokes a spouse to defensiveness. Instead of considering and talking about their spouse’s concern, an accused spouse will be tempted to prove that they are not always guilty of this or that behavior.”

What “Leah’s Eyes Were Weak” Means—and What It Says About Bible Interpretation, HT to Challies. Admittedly, the state of Leah’s eyes doesn’t affect any major doctrine. Our opinions about what the statement about her eyes in Scripture means is not a hill to die on. But I appreciate the process Mark Ward takes us through when a passage of Scripture isn’t clear and even commentators disagree.

How Can I Be a Good Father When Mine Walked Out?

How Making an If/Then List Can help Your Mental Health, HT to Linda. “Recently, while going through the grief of a loss and all the emotional turmoil that can entail, I made myself an ‘if/then list.’ I thought through what helps—really helps—me in any given mood or symptom, and then made myself a list with easy, actionable steps to take if I found myself in any of those situations.”

This is as good a time as any for my occasional reminder that linking to a post does not mean full endorsement of everything about that site. If a friend’s link sends me to a site I’ve never visited before, and I consider sharing the post, I’ll look at the “about” section to have some idea where the person is coming from. I wouldn’t share something I have strong reservations about without some caveats, but obviously I don’t know everything about a site when I’ve just read one post there. And we often have some disagreements even with our dearest friends. We need to be discerning in all we read.

I watched a program last night in which what I would consider to be normal father-son love and support brought a couple of people to tears. I wondered if seeing such interaction was so rare in the world that it brought forth such an emotion. Maybe these folks didn’t have that fatherly support–or maybe they did, and the memory brought tears. At any rate, I very much agree with the statement below. Happy Father’s Day tomorrow to the dads out there. Keep up the good work. It’s vital.

Laudable Linkage

Posted on by

I have just a few links to share this week:

Prayers That God Will Not Answer. “There are times when it seems like God does not hear us. There are times when it seems like God has become deaf to our prayers and unresponsive to our cries. There are times when we seek but do not find, knock but do not find the door opened. Why is it that God sometimes does not answer our prayers?”

Embodied Discernment: Learning to Discern With Our Hearts. Minds, and Actions, HT to Challies. “Where I went wrong is that my discernment only engaged my mind—and if you’re like me, maybe you’ve gone wrong in this way too. Why is this a problem? Doesn’t discernment only require logic and study?”

5 Steps to Deal with a Distressing Situation. “Based on 1 Samuel chapter 30, I want to share with you these five biblical steps when we face adverse situations which cause great distress and bitterness.”

Patsy at InstaEncouragements is hosting a summer book club reading and sharing insights on Aging With Grace: Flourishing In an Anti-Aging Culture ​by Sharon W. Betters and Susan Hunt. Discussion on the first chapter is here. It’s not too late to join in!

Laudable Linkage

Posted on by

Here’s the latest thought-provoking reads seen around the Web lately.

Our Hope In the Ascension, HT to Challies. “Of all the aspects of Christ’s work in his state of exaltation, the Ascension is one of the most overlooked.”

God Matures Us Through Suffering, not Miracles, HT to Challies. “Suffering, not miraculous deliverance, is the primary way God matures his children. A supernatural event can encourage us, of course, but it doesn’t mature us. Maturity comes through trusting God when things are really hard, even seemingly unbearable. Will we trust God when the miracles don’t happen?”

A Letter to All the Marthas. “It struck me that Jesus hadn’t written Martha off. He saw her faith and hard work as well as her weaknesses. And he loved Martha just as much as Mary. I began to view Jesus’ words through a lens of love.”

Why You Should Stop Being Responsible and Start Being Faithful. “Losing my mother as a teenager accompanied by my father’s paralyzing grief amped my firstborn sense of responsibility. I equated being responsible with being dependable. But when being responsible means depending on myself and my resources instead of relying on God it’s unhealthy and ungodly.”

Are Cuss Words Sinful? HT to Challies. “You hear them in movies, television series, and in actual conversations. To some, these words sound cool, and they have made them part of their lives. Yet when you learn their meaning, cuss words will make you cringe.”

The Sugar Coating, HT to Challies. “I have some authority to say that self-pity doesn’t get you anywhere. Trust me, I’ve tried it. Even on those occasions when people who really ought to know better don’t recognise the sheer weight of the scars you bear, and you feel like you must delve into the pools of pity to shake them out of their repose—it still isn’t worth it.”

4 Guidelines for Dating Without Regrets. “Somewhere between my generation and the current one, dating became difficult—far more difficult than it had once been. I am sure the so-called “purity movement” bears at least some of the responsibility as does the modern-day hookup culture. So, too, do the ubiquity of pornography and the rise of social media and dating apps. What was once relatively straightforward seems to have become strangely complicated.”

Adventures in Aging. Melanie writes about a change of heart from being depressed about age to embracing new possibilities.

Dementia’s Drowning Caregiver. Lots of good tips.

How to Think Wisely About Becoming a Social Media Celebrity, HT to Challies. In these days when we’re told we have to have a big enough “platform” before an agent or publisher will even consider looking at our manuscripts, we need to keep grounded in God’s truth of who we are in Him.

Laudable Linkage

Posted on by

Our hearts go out to those in Uvalde, TX, with the recent mass shooting there. Our hearts are heavy with the sorrow and senselessness of it. I appreciated what Susanne had to say at the beginning of her Friday’s Fave Five this week. A couple of other posts that I found helpful:

Uvalde, HT to The Story Warren. “In these moments, everyone is searching for answers. Everyone wants to figure out something to do, something that will somehow stop the hurting. We try to find meaning in the unimaginable, try to make sense of an atrocious act. Can I offer some advice? If you know these families–or anyone facing grief–you don’t have to offer answers. You don’t have to come up with reasons. You don’t have to try to find the silver lining or the lesson to be learned. Don’t turn their tragedy into a talking point or something political. Instead, just sit with them in their grief.”

When Violence Touches a Child’s Life, HT to Challies. “Rather than react out of fear, we must help our kids by demonstrating an appropriate level of sobriety and sorrow by such events, while exhibiting that our hope is in Christ. The challenge is to find the right balance—teaching young people awareness and caution while equally encouraging trust in a sovereign God. “

Here are some of the other good reads found online recently:

Abiding in Christ: A Practical Description. “The word abide is a simple term. It means to remain, stay, or dwell. To abide is to continue in the same place for some stretch of time. The meaning is uncomplicated, but how does a believer abide in a Person?”

Bend Me Toward the Light, HT to Challies. “Written into creation is God’s plan for growth. Sunlight is essential, as is water. When our plants die, it’s often because of lack of light or moisture. So, if one of those things is less accessible than it should be, a plant will lean toward what it needs. We humans, on the other hand, will bend toward whatever gives us the most pleasure, physical comfort, and approval, no matter how it affects our health and growth.”

The Psalms Know What You Feel, HT to The Story Warren. “The psalms, however, are not a simple chorus repeated over and over again, but a symphony, filled with as many experiences and emotions as humans endure and feel. The five books that make up Psalms really are a master class in human adversity.”

Loving With a Limp, HT to Challies. “But should that surprise us? That God would inflict hurt to bring healing? Many will not imagine, nor accept, a God who could act this way. But he does, and he remains good. Even as he wrenched Jacob’s hip, even as muscle and fibre tore in ways that would never recover, God was healing a heart that was hard and deceitful, crafting through the pain and discomfort that became Jacob’s constant companion, a man that would birth a nation, and even the Messiah.”

How to Spot a Wolf, HT to Challies. “The Bible commands Christians, ‘Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account’ (Heb. 13:17, NIV). But God’s Word also tells of times when we shouldn’t trust and submit to leaders. What are the circumstances when honoring God means disobeying, fleeing, or even calling out those who minister in his name?”

What’s the Best Bible for Me? “Are you about to head to the bookstore (or, more likely, your laptop) to buy a Bible? The process may overwhelm you if you’re not prepared because choosing one has never been more complicated. We have more options but fewer bookstores where we can hold a Bible and flip through its pages. I’d love to help you take out some of the guesswork so you can make your decision based on more than a pretty cover.”

A Call to Raise Daughters Who Are Wise to Domestic Abuse, HT to Challies. “Abuse is easy to discern when it looks like something everyone knows is bad—a close-fisted punch, a shove down a stairwell, a locked closet. Abuse is much harder to discern when it looks similar to something good—like assertive leadership, exclusive affection, or clear direction.”

Expectations, HT to The Story Warren. “I heard an excerpt from a Christian podcast a few days ago and it hit me wrong. Two women were talking and one said something along the lines of, ‘I wish I had lowered my expectations for my children.’ She went on to explain how that was the better, more loving thing to do–how we should make it a point to welcome people just as they are and reassure them that however they show up is good enough. I call bull (sorry if you think that’s too blunt).”

The Hidden Danger of Productivity Systems. “When we learn to depend on our ways to getting things done and accomplishing our goals, we cease to rely on God. We believe that our systems can make us successful, rather than God Himself. And if we happen to achieve success, we run the risk of becoming complacent.”

Art Fan: How to Cheer Kids On to Creative New Heights. “Performing arts like dance, music, and theater do provide athletic-like opportunities to fill theater seats and shout Bravo!, but recitals, concerts, and performances tend to come around far less often than sporting events. Then there are art forms like painting, photography, or poetry that don’t readily provide fans with stand-up-and-cheer type opportunities.” One family came up with ways to encourage their children’s artistic endeavors.

Laudable Linkage

Posted on by

Here are some good reads that ministered to me this week.

Submit Your Felt Reality to God, HT to Challies. “Reality is reality. It’s objective. It’s what’s actually happening. Felt reality is what’s happening from my vantage point. It’s reality framed by my own thoughts, assumptions, and emotions.” The author includes a look at David’s submitting his felt reality to God in the Psalms.

Talking to Our Souls. This goes along with the one above. “We don’t always have access to counselors and wise friends, of course. Sometimes, we have to counsel ourselves, using words we know to be true because they come from trusted sources. We can easily get into trouble, though, when we listen to ourselves instead of talking to ourselves.”

Loving Across the Ideological Fence, HT to Challies. “Society and the mainstream media tries so hard to pit everybody against one another. And they are successful for the most part. Christians must resist this. We must not cave into the cultural pressure of hating those who don’t see things the way we do. Again, we must love those on the other side.”

The Dead Seriousness of Careless Words. “Carelessness was on Jesus’ mind on a day when the religious authorities confronted him about his failure to keep their interpretation of the religious law. He remarked that their words were evil because their hearts were evil. ‘How can you speak good, when you are evil?’ he asked. ‘For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.’ And in that context he offered the most solemn of warnings. ‘I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.'”

It Rots the Bones, HT to Challies. “Many months ago, I received an email from a dear, faithful reader, asking for help. Her life was quickly unraveling, and in the midst of persistent heartache, she had fallen headlong into envy. Jealousy towards a woman in her church, whose life seemed quite perfect. This jealousy was destroying her, from the inside out. Envy is the thief of contentment, isn’t it? It reveals an idol tucked in the heart.”

Praying the Word: When You Feel Angry, HT to the Story Warren. “On the surface, prayer seems simple. It’s talking to God. But in practice, we may have a lot of questions. Am I doing this right? Is there a “right” way to do it? What am I supposed to say? Are there things I shouldn’t pray about? Or maybe we feel pretty comfortable with praying, but we struggle with getting bored or losing focus. Whatever our struggles with prayer, Scripture can be helpful.”

Is It Okay to Pray for a Husband? “For a long, long time, one thing that kept me back from praying specific prayers was wondering if I was asking for the wrong things. I wondered if what I was praying was really according to God’s will. I would pray generic prayers: ‘God, I have this decision coming up, and, uhhh . . . Your will be done.’ It was an uninvolved, nonpersonal prayer. In the pages of Scripture, when we look at Jesus’ prayers and the Psalms, we see that God invites us to come to Him with exactly what’s happening in our daily lives. He invites us to pray about the small things—to pray about the specifics.” I like her acronym for prayer.

When It Comes to Friendships, It’s OK to Be the Planner, HT to Linda. “When you like people, you extend invitations for specific times. If other people don’t do that, is it because they don’t like you as much? You might hold back, worried that you are misjudging things. But before you stop trying, understand this: It’s OK to be the planner. Your gift is logistics and coordination. Other people have different gifts. Appreciating that makes it possible to enjoy friendships more.”

VOX Outdoes Itself in Ignorance and Misogyny, HT to Challies. “Tragically, heretofore, society understood that babies coming into the world was so important that when women were going to have them, they really had to do that as the main thing for many years and couldn’t do anything else. Prevailing opinion thinks this was misogyny, that ‘staying home’ with babies and young children was a terrible thing to do, and not gracious and life giving, and also the glue that kept a lot of society together.”

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

Posted on by

Here’s the latest thought-provoking reads seen around the Web lately.

In Christ, We Have Direct Access to God, HT to Challies. “Is it inconsistent for the Bible to teach us that God ‘dwells in unapproachable light’ (1 Tim. 6:16), while at the same time exhort us to draw near to him? If God dwells in the white-hot light of his holiness, how can sinners like you and me ever hope to take even one baby step toward him? If God is so pure, so completely undefiled, so sharply separate from sin, how can we approach him? Indeed, it seems, he is unapproachable. Yet the author of Hebrews strongly encourages believers to not only approach God, but to do so with ‘full assurance.'”

Still, HT to Challies. This is beautifully written. “Is it true that the quiet valleys of this world harbour stillness like some treasure to be dug up? Quite possibly. But I’m not convinced that is what the ancient song-writer is calling us to. Rather, it strikes me that there is a tone of command here, a tone better heard if we had sat with the desperate disciples on a wind whipped lake, the night dread gripped their hearts.”

Keys to Knowing God’s Will for Your Life. “Of all the issues related to Christian living, few receive greater attention than knowing God’s will for our lives. Many believers, and especially younger ones, agonize over knowing what God means for them to do and how he means for them to live out their days. Many end up leaning toward a low-grade form of mysticism, longing to receive some kind of a sign from the skies or some kind of a word in their hearts.”

What Makes a “Strong Woman” Strong? HT to Challies. “‘Strong woman’ is a phrase heard often these days, and because I admire both words and women, I’ve been paying attention. It’s used in politics, on campuses, in the media, and even by little girls who know at a very early age to describe themselves as ‘strong.’ It’s made me think about what strong actually means—what is the implication when people say ‘strong woman’?”

We Don’t Need to Rescue Biblical Characters from Themselves, HT to Challies. “If we understand that the Bible is not a book of heroes to emulate, but sinners in the need of Jesus, our outlook changes a bit. We don’t need to rescue the biblical characters from themselves so we can emulate them, we can take comfort in the fact that even our very greatest heroes in the Bible were not perfectly faithful. They, as much as us, needed Jesus. The Biblical characters are not there principally as examples to us to emulate, but as examples to us of God’s grace.”

Two Letters and a Cute Dog Photo, HT to Challies. “My mind turns to the commute home and the evening ahead. Oh, that’s right: tonight is Bible study night. I was already feeling physically and mentally tired, and now I realise I’ve got to get home, do a quick turn around on dinner, then up and out in the cold to head to my home group. Or … I could stay home, get those nagging chores done, quickly watch the next episode of that Netflix series I’ve been enjoying, and get to bed at a time more in keeping with the level of fatigue I’m feeling. I’m sure my group and the leaders will understand. They always do. Here are five quick reasons to intentionally derail that train of thought and go to growth group.”

Not What I Expected, HT to Challies. “One of the most shocking television moments I ever witnessed was on L.A. Law in the 1980s. A character everyone loved to hate, Rosalind, stepped through her law office’s elevator doors mid-sentence and unexpectedly plummeted to her death. That’s kind of how I felt when I became a mom…like I was falling. I stepped forward and the floor wasn’t there. The drastic life change was so much harder than I expected, in ways I didn’t anticipate.”

Teach Us to Number Our Drives, That We May Gain the Hearts of Our Children, HT to Challies. “Even though I know this comes with the territory, I struggle to enjoy it. This season of spending lots of time together in the car is fleeting, and I need to take advantage of having a captive audience. But while I love my kids with all my heart, and I’d jump in front of an oncoming train for them, some days I don’t want to lay my life down to drive them across town.”

And a thought for the day:

Happy Saturday!