Love and encouragement from an imperfect mom and her fun teen daughters. We welcome you to live life with us.
blogs that talk about the Bible and our Christian faith
(or your friend lacked one) God designed humans to have a safe, loving relationship with an earthly father (and mother, but today’s post is about dads.) What if you lacked this loving relationship in your childhood? While God has promised to be a father to the fatherless (Psalm68:5,) how can a gal (or guy) appropriate … Read more When you Didn’t have a Loving Earthly Father
Unhealthy neediness is ungodly and causes people to do foolish things, cling to people, make unfair demands and operate out of fear. In contrast, people can have healthy needs, such as babies, frail elderly people, and very close friends and spouses who let themselves express vulnerable needs to enable the relationship to grow. Neediness becomes … Read more Dealing with Needy Children, Friends and our Needy Selves
Atheists say God wrongly turned a deaf ear to Old Testament King Saul, because he repented and asked for help. They also say God did not answer their prayers, and they were needy too, so they stopped believing in God. But does God not hear or answer needy prayers? I believe he listens to and … Read more Atheists say God was too Hard on OT King Saul
Last week I talked about how “idealizing” people or God is actually rejecting (or hating) them, not loving them. “Idealizing” people opposes God’s heart, because God sees the entire person and does not claim a person is all good or all bad. Initially the idealist only sees the person’s good qualities and denies anything bad … Read more “False idealism” hurts people and displeases God
To idealize another person, even God, is to actually hate the real person, while making unreasonable demands and never accepting the person or forgiving him or her. People idealize a person or God by believing the “idealized person” (or God) owes them and thus the idealizers create an image of a person (or God) who … Read more Idealizing not Loving People: from “loving” to hating a person—even God
Bringing the Lord into our fears There are two ways of dealing with future problems that can harm us. First, some people fear possible future problems and speak “What if,” such as “What if I fail?” The second set of people say we should never think about the future and possible problems, because we have … Read more Fearing Future Problems
What to do when we do our best but others still outperform us Envy and self recrimination (berating ourselves) can strike our hearts when we work harder than others but they still do way better than we are doing. We might imagine it is not fair they achieve so much (or receive so much). Or … Read more Trying Harder but doing Less than Others
This week I’m adding part two to last week’s blog on recognizing legalism(Recognizing Legalism and its Hidden Dangers), so I can discuss the joy we find when we replace this dreadful drain with the abundant life God wants for us. Satan wants to steal our joy (John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and … Read more Replacing Legalism with Joy
We must recognize legalism and protect ourselves and others from its milder forms (forcing people to do what they do not need to do) and its dangerous forms (covering the sins of abusers, claiming they are doing God’s work). In its milder form, legalists mistake God for an angry boss and demand too much of … Read more Recognizing Legalism and its Hidden Dangers
In the last two weeks, I’ve written about misconceptions and lies that hold us back from abiding or resting in the Lord. This week I am finally ready to write about the joy this abiding brings. Abiding or resting in the Lord sounded boring to me as an active child. I hated naps and loved … Read more Abiding in the Lord, part 3 Enjoying the Peace