Category Archives: Laudable Linkage

Laudable Linkage

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This is my latest collection of thought-provoking online reads:

Is the God of the Bible a Genocidal Maniac? HT to Challies. No, but some have made that accusation. Here is a thoughtful response.

When Joy Feels Far Away, HT to True Woman. “What do you do when you have tried everything, but joy still feels far away?”

How to Study the Bible. I have not had a chance to watch these videos yet, and I normally wouldn’t post something I haven’t checked out for myself first. But Jen Wilkin’s Women of the Word is one of my favorite books. An updated version has just been released, and Jen published a series of videos showing how to use the Bible study method she writes about.

A Stack of Bibles. “The power of the Reformation was the power of the Word of God in the hands of normal people.”

How to Hope in God When a Door Closes.

My Love Cannot Save You, HT to Challies. As deep and wide and strong as a mother’s love is, we’re still limited in how much we can protect our children. “I can’t prevent her pain or her tears, but I know the One who wraps his arms around her and catches every tear in a bottle, present and attentive to each one.”

How TO (and how NOT to) Raise a Monstrous Son, HT to Lou Ann. “For his own good, and for the good of all the women he will encounter in life, he needs you to stand up to him when he crosses the line, especially in regard to using his physical strength to harm others.”

Four Things the Princess Culture Gets Wrong, HT to True Woman. “Rather than jumping on the bandwagon of the mommy wars—to princess or not to princess—I’ve opted to reframe the concept according to biblical truth.”

Why NO ONE Should Object to Clean Teen Fiction. Believe it or not, some do! These are good reasons they shouldn’t.

I don’t follow many comics online, but xkcd is one. Here are a couple of recent entries:

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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Here’s my latest collection of good online reads:

Seven Deadly Sins for Writers. Even though this post is aimed at writers, its discussion of the pervasiveness of pride applies to anyone.

Tolerance Trouble, HT to Challies. “The Corinthian church boasted about its tolerance of the incestuous man who was permitted to retain membership and acceptance within the Corinthian church. They were congratulating themselves for such open-mindedness when they should have been weeping.”

And concerning tolerance of a different kind: What Does 2 John Have to Teach Us about Partnering with False Teachers?, HT to Challies. This was refreshing to read because this is what I’ve believed for years, but have not seen many people writing this publicly.

What It Means to Pray “Your Kingdom Come.” The True Woman blog, which is under the umbrella of Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth’s Revive Our Hearts ministry, is doing a series on the individual phrases in what we call “the Lord’s prayer.” I thought this one was particularly good.

Wives Who Churn About Husbands “Leading Spiritually,” HT to Lou Ann. Though this is addressed to home school moms, it applies to any Christian wife.

Sorry, Banning Plastic Bags Won’t Save Our Planet, HT to Challies. “As with other environmental issues, instead of tackling the big-picture problems to actually reduce the plastic load going into oceans, we focus on relatively minor changes involving consumers, meaning we only ever tinker at the margins.”

A True (Humorous) Look at the Writing Process. Although I have only reached the first three stages, and I’m writing nonfiction, I can relate!

Finally, I thought this was funny: a dog’s melodramatic reaction to having its nails clipped:

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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Here’s my latest collection of thought-provoking posts:

Do Christians, Jews, and Muslims Worship the Same God? HT to Challies.

When You’re Tempted to Hate People, Part 10. Aspects of God’s forgiveness that we don’t often think about: He knows whether our repentance is sincere and He knows we’re going to fall again in the same way, yet still forgives.

For Childhood Fears, Bible Memory is Not Enough. “Did you notice how God doesn’t just speak to the mind, but also to the imagination?”

Exactly Where I Need to be When I Need to Be There. “Recently the Lord took a frustrating situation that tested my patience and reminded me my timing and priorities are different than His and that He often places me exactly where I need to be when I need to be there.”

The Importance Of Doing What Anyone Could Do, HT to Challies. “It’s a good thing for all of us that people have developed these skills. It’s also true that the world is always in need of the non-specialised abilities that all of us are capable of using: Love. Friendship. Shared time. A listening ear. A hard day’s work. Loyalty. Respect.”

Embodying Masculinity in a World that Rejects It.

A Writer’s Evening Prayer.

Getting Your Digital Accounts Ready in Case of Death, HT to Challies.

101 Fun Fall Activities for Kids, HT to the Story Warren.

Finally, someone posted this on Facebook. I couldn’t figure out who originally made it to give them credit, but it made me smile.

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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Here are a number of noteworthy reads discovered recently:

How Christians Should Respond to Kanye’s Reported Conversion, or any celebrity profession of faith. HT to Challies.

Our Words as an Instrument of Gentleness. An example of a soft word turning away wrath in a volatile situation.

Living a Legacy Life. The older we get, the more we realize how little time we have left. Make it count.

Be Patient with Us as We Learn, HT to Challies. “Older saint, we need you to make the first move and keep pursuing us. We need you to seek, mentor, disciple, and love the younger Christians in our church. I’m asking you to be patient with younger Christians with a patience such as our Lord Jesus exemplified. When we act in pride, please patiently endure us.”

How to Help an Anxious Child.

3 Things to Keep in Mind When Hospitality is Hard, HT to Story Warren.

Announcements at Church: Why Do We Do Them? HT to Challies. I love this description: “It’s being like the family at Sunday lunch, sharing about what’s happened and what’s coming up. It’s about connecting, lining up, knowing what we are all up to. It’s about love.”

For Those Who Turn Up Their Noses at Christian Fiction.

To Infinity . . . “I’m thankful for stories that awaken our imaginations and, in so doing, encourage us to press on. I’m thankful for the adventures that happen in Narnia and Middle Earth and Aerwiar and Natalia. I’m thankful for the imaginary world and surprising wisdom of Andy’s toys. And I’m thankful for the Story that all good stories ultimately point to, whether the authors themselves realize it or not . . .”

Finally, this is amazing. A man with cerebral palsy creates art using just ten keys on a typewriter:

Laudable Linkage

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I have a very short list today, but a good one. I started to save them for next week, but by then I might have so many they’d get lost in the shuffle.

Redefining Balance So We Stop Thinking We’re Doing Life Wrong, HT to Edie Melson at the Blue Ridge Conference Writers Facebook Page. “Juggling is exhausting. It’s also not supposed to be a full-time gig. Professional jugglers don’t juggle every day, all the time. Which brings me to the whole idea of balance because juggling involves balance.”

Maintaining Confidence in the Process. “Too often we overestimate the growth we can gain in a week, but underestimate the growth we can gain in a year.”

The Casserole Rules. “As people of faith, we are very good at meeting people in times of death and illness. There are no judgments around these things, and we do not need discernment about who was in the wrong. We don’t have to wonder about whether one’s grief is deserving of a casserole. The rules about other human conditions are not so clear. Casseroles for the death of a marriage? For a mental breakdown? For rehab?”

My five-year-old grandson likes the “Dude Perfect” guys on YouTube and shared several of their videos with us. This was one of my favorites:

I don’t necessarily like the “Rage Monster,” who appears in all their “stereotypes” videos. Being so angry you’re out of control is scary rather than funny to me. I guess someone must have been looking to take up a gym floor here. 🙂

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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Any link I share with you is a worthy read, but there have been some especially excellent ones this week:

A Tale of Two Teachers. “We elevate youth and beauty. We want funny more than we want wise. . . We want empowerment more than we want humility.”

If You Want Your Kids to Own Their Faith, Teach Them to Think Critically about Their Faith, HT to Challies. “I think this is one of the reasons why many Christian kids grow up and abandon ‘their’ beliefs. For many of them, those beliefs were never theirs in the first place. They were their parent’s beliefs that the kids were taught to memorize and regurgitate, beliefs the kids were never challenged to think through for themselves.”

Make Me a Cake, HT to Challies. “Sometimes during the long dark nights, I wake. And I remember Autism, that dark cloud that settled over our lives years ago. And I think about how this is forever, at least on this Earth. How this is the rest of my life. And I wonder, how can I do this for the rest of my life?”

The Ministry of Presence. “The local church doesn’t need people of outsized talents or rare abilities as much as it needs normal people with full-out commitment.”

5 Tips for Conversations in Our Tense Cultural Moment, HT to Challies. “In years gone by, it seems you could just disagree with someone and everyone was fine with that. You could just shake hands and move on. But now, in our tense cultural situation, disagreement is regarded as a personal attack. To disagree with someone is to be hateful and unloving toward them.”

Confidence to Face the Challenge. “He doesn’t look to boost Solomon’s self-esteem, but to encourage his confidence in the God who has called him.”

Why I Find Decorating Important to the Soul, HT to Kim. “There was a time when I almost stopped doing any kind of seasonal decorating. Why bother when we no longer have children living at home and the days of spending hours preparing a meal for a crowd are long gone. Why decorate when it is just two of us and a cat most of the time?”

Finally, this showed up in my Facebook memories this morning: a text with my husband a few years ago that brought a smile.

It makes me wish there was a breakfast biscuit called Bacon Nation. 🙂

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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Here are a few of the good reads that caught my eye lately:

I Was a White Supremacist, HT to Challies. What struck me about this, besides the dramatic change wrought in the heart of the writer, was the fact that a group of women  prayed for that change for two years after hearing about him in the news. Would that we would do that more often.

Do We Play Any Role in Our Sanctification?, HT to Challies.  “The battle image is a very active image. Soldiers in battle are not passive observers. They’re not sitting there watching life go by. They’re as actively engaged as anybody could be in any activity. So, too, we are called to be actively engaged in sanctification. It is our great calling to pursue holiness, to aspire to that for which God has called us, and to strain every effort that we have.”

Reasons to Go to Bible Study. The schedule hasn’t always worked out for me to go, but when it has, it’s been so beneficial.

Younger Pastors and Senior Adults, HT to Challies. Excellent perspectives of older folks and ways to minister to them and involve them in ministry.

I wish . . .When we envy someone’s blessings, do we want the trials that led to the blessings as well? Probably not.

5+ Questions to Ask a Visiting Missionary at Dinner, HT to Challies.

The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. I have no closing pictures or videos today, but there are plenty of good ones here!

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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I found a lot of good reading this week, so I have a little longer list than usual. I hope you find something edifying here.

How to Fall . . . Again. HT to Challies. “You may have some obvious boundaries in place to keep you from the explicit routes back to your old sins. But there are some ways your new life might make you vulnerable to new sins. The devil is cunning and is perfectly willing to cut you in the left side while you protect your right. How might this happen? What are some ways you might fall again?”

What If the Worst Comes to Pass? Developing a What If Theology, HT to Challies.. Dealing with anxiety by facing the “what ifs” full on rather than hiding from them.

From Gay to Gospel: The Fascinating Story of Becket Cook, HT to Challies. Moving testimony.

6 Powerful Keys To Overcoming Anger, HT to Challies. “What is it that I want right now that I’m not getting? This question has changed my life. This question has helped me again and again to overcome the temptation to anger in my life. I try to ask myself this question when I’m tempted to be angry. What is it I want right now that I’m not getting?”

4 Ways to Grow in Self-Control, HT to Challies. “Self-control is one of the biggest indicators of Christian character. Without it, you’ll eventually ruin your life and legacy. With it, you can thrive and be a blessing to others around you. You’re probably convinced of the need for self-control. But how do you get it?”

Aspire to Live Quietly, HT to Challies.. “Be honest, do you love the conflict? Do you love the argument? If so, be insignificant on social media and preserve your soul. For what use is it to you if you gain all the world’s likes but lose your soul?”

Prime Prayer Attitude. Has Amazon prime affected our praying? Do we expect the answer at our front door in two days or free returns if we don’t like what we get?

Friend, What’s Your Name? Learning how to make friends from a child’s example.

No Pang Shall Be Mine? HT to Challies. Being a Christian doesn’t necessarily make for an easy death. Death is still the final enemy.

Was Jesus a Person of Color? An Immigrant? A Palestinian? HT to Challies. “Jesus should not be a political pawn whose identity shifts to match whatever the political cause is of the day. It is better for us to orient our lives around him than him around our politics.”

A Sad Tale of a Wealthy Millennial’s Moral Confusion, HT to Challies. I am coming across this idea more and more that wealth is immoral. I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a post about it, but this says almost everything I would want to.

The Deepfake Artists Must be Stopped, HT to Challies. This is disturbing. People have found ways to copy a person’s voice to make fake recordings of them saying and doing whatever the creator wants.

Creating a Bible Study Notebook. The ladies at Do Not Depart have been discussing this topic all month and share some free printables.

Downton Abbey Cast Reverses Roles, HT to Laura. Fun!

Finally, I stumbled across this and really enjoyed it. Some of you may remember Jim Varney’s Ernie or Ernest character. I had no idea that Varney was a trained classical actor. It was also interesting seeing how Ernest got started. I think this must have aired before some of his later movies, since it doesn’t reference them.

Laudable Linkage

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I have another short but noteworthy list today:

Don’t Trust in Your Christianity, HT to Challies. “I’m afraid many find themselves in a similar predicament of pretense after growing up ‘Christian,’ developing ‘Christian’ habits, and embracing ‘Christian’ ideals—all without any real knowledge of the truly narrow road that leads to eternal life.”

Skillet’s John Cooper on Apostasy Among Young Christian Leaders. I don’t know this person, but I was fascinated by this article a friend linked to on Facebook. I think he’s right. “It is time for the church to rediscover the preeminence of the Word. And to value the teaching of the Word. We need to value truth over feeling. Truth over emotion. And what we are seeing now is the result of the church raising up influencers who did not supremely value truth who have led a generation who also do not believe in the supremacy of truth. And now those disavowed leaders are proudly still leading and influencing boldly AWAY from the truth.”

Most Growth Will be Slow Growth, HT to Challies. “We are just plain tired. Tired of daily self-denial. Tired of taking two steps forward and one step back. Tired of walking on a road that feels endless, toward a city we cannot see. Disillusioned and exhausted, many sit down on the path, not sure if they will get back up again. Why does the slowness of our sanctification come as a surprise to so many of us?” This is something I have wrestled with and very much needed to hear.

How Not to Fall Away, HT to Challies. “[Paul] mentioned Hymenaeus and Alexander who had blasphemed and ‘concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck’ (1 Tim. 1:19-20). What a terrible image. But Paul wasn’t exaggerating. He had been shipwrecked (2 Cor. 11:25). He knew that apostasy was no less tragic than the sinking of a vessel on which people’s lives depended.”

Finally, this cracked me up at first, but then seemed poignant. A lot for a short video to convey! The comments on YouTube with different people’s interpretations was interesting, too.

Happy Saturday!

Laudable Linkage

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I have another short list today. But sometimes I think it might be better to share more frequent short lists than occasional long ones. I think several good links get lost in a longer list.

Groaning Grace. “Although it may seem merciful to strike an intentionally positive note, it actually leaves Christians ill-equipped to deal with the hardships of life, whether those tragedies are personal or national. Whereas God has given us perhaps as much as half a Bible that riffs on suffering, we paint the Christian experience as a life of perpetual joy.”

The Mistake I Made With My Grieving Friend, seen multiple places. “From that day forward, I started to notice how often I responded to stories of loss and struggle with stories of my own experiences.”

Is Genesis 1:28 a Cultural Mandate? HT to Proclaim and Defend. I so appreciated the discussion here about imperatives in the Bible. Every imperative sentence or phrase is not a command.

Picking Up The Pieces, HT to Challies, on other women filling in when one woman’s mom passes away.

Happy Saturday!