(looking back as parents of grown children – of which we have 8) Isaiah 64:6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. Why is…
PRAY fervently and continually. That’s it. We tend to examine/evaluate our parenting in terms of success and failure. A much better scale is obedience/disobedience. Raising our kids is a stewardship and the goal is to be found trustworthy. 1 Cor. 4:1-5 So have as your Parent Focus: Be the best I can be in living…
(adapted from a talk given at Mom2Mom Jan. 2016) [Bio: Lauris was raised the son of a bivocational pastor/school teacher in small towns of KS, #4 of 6 children. Rhonda was raised the youngest of 3 in San Diego, CA. After military service and a graduate degree in mathematics, Lauris moved to San Diego to…
BLUF: (bottom line up front – synopsis) Six Principles to Apply by Wisdom The scriptures teach us the path that as we follow it leads to abundant life! Ps. 32:8; 16:11; John 10:10 Biblical relationships are counter-cultural; we must live differently than most. Rom. 12:2; Jas. 4:4; 2 Cor. 6:17; Prov. 16:25 (the way that…
It’s difficult but critical to discern what I truly believe and will stand/act upon and what I feel. It seems like for so many people faith and truth are determined by feeling; ‘it can’t be true if it doesn’t feel true’. What an unreliable, easily manipulated determinant. 1 Peter 1:25 …but the word of the…
When people suffer loss of food, shelter, property, health….material and physical needs, we tend to think of prayer as simply ‘consolation’ (last resort) because we don’t have the means to provide the ‘real help’ replacing what they lost. If we primarily or even only give physical and material/temporal aid, we simply enable them in their…
The Bible says it is. I believe Genesis 1 and 2 should be taken literally. One of the best Hebraists in the world, James Barr of Oxford University writes, “So far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of…
Key verses: Hebrews 12:1-2 (NASB) Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of…
Are you Discouraged? Depressed? Fearful? Anxious? Worried? Overwhelmed? Confused? Filled with negative thoughts? Where is your focus? What dominates your thinking? Remember Peter walking on the water toward Jesus after he’d asked Jesus to prove it was He by inviting him to do so? Matthew 14:28-31 Peter got distracted by the wind and waves all…
John 15:14,15 You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. While I grew…