Daly Focus Blog
“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33, ESV).
If you’re single, have you ever applied that verse to your dating relationships and search for a godly spouse?
Many Christian singles seek the same things in a mate as non-Christian singles. They focus on whether or not they’re attracted to one another, share common interests, enjoy each other’s company, or even if they share sexual chemistry.
Remember when you were first married? You and your spouse talked, had fun every weekend, and always seemed to have time for one another.
Then you became parents.
Now it seems every moment is busy with sports practice, dentist appointments, and school programs. Once a couple has children, it can be tough to fit each other in. Their marriage routinely gets pushed down the priority list.
It seems justifiable in the moment because parenting does require a lot from parents.
Ladies, how would you describe yourself? Would you use the word “beautiful”?
If you answer “no,” you’re not alone. In fact, according to author Elisa Morgan, the vast majority of women around the world, including Christians, don’t feel beautiful.
They see beauty in others – friends, relatives, celebrities, models on magazine covers – but they don’t see it in themselves. That’s partly because women see their outer flaws – “This is too big,” “that is too small” – but it’s also because a woman’s “ugly list,” as Elisa calls it, goes deeper, to the soul.
It’s not easy for a single mother to raise a son. It’s even more difficult when that son has autism.
Emily Colson can attest to that. Her husband walked out when their son Max was just 18-months-old, saying he couldn’t handle the stress.
And there was a lot of stress. Max’s autism was so severe that, for a time, Emily couldn’t leave home with him – not to the grocery store, not to friends’ houses, not to church.
Chocolate was a symbol of how bad Sandy and Tom’s marriage had become.
They were in a drive-thru ordering food, and Sandy asked for a chocolate shake. Tom said “no” and forced her to reorder. Vanilla, he believed, was the better choice. He was convinced chocolate would make her face break out and cause her to gain weight.
Tom didn’t realize it at the time, but the problem wasn’t chocolate, it was control. To get the marriage he was after, Tom thought he had to rule with an iron fist.
The percentages are hard to know for sure, but research indicates that 50 percent or more of all women feel lonely.
Dr. Joneal Kirby points to several reasons why those numbers are so high. For one, social media has caused an increase in superficial relationships. Some women have dozens of friends on Facebook, but very few with whom they can talk face-to-face. They don’t meet for coffee with anyone, and they have no one with whom they can get beneath the surface, share their hearts, and “do life.”
Women are also busier than ever.
Terrie and Cal’s son is 38. Their oldest daughter is 34. Abbey, their youngest, is 12.
That’s right – 12.
How did that happen? Well, it’s quite a story. It’s something of a miracle, too. Not a medical miracle, but the sort of miracle made possible by adoption.
Before she stepped into Terrie and Cal’s lives, Abbey was removed from her biological mother at a young age, then cycled through a revolving door of adoptive families, foster parents, and residential treatment centers for adolescents.
Mom and Dad, are you a tug boat or a rudder?
You can tell by the way you motivate your children. Tug boat parents pull their children through the water to get them going the right direction. Rudder parents steer them in the way they should go.
We’re all tug boats from time to time. I know I’ve grabbed the rope and started to pull when one of my boys hasn’t made a good decision. That urge to force them in the right direction usually plays upon my concern for their health and well-being.
Proverbs 19:15 says, “Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger” (ESV).
Second Thessalonians 3:10 says, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat” (ESV).
Those Scriptures and others warn us against laziness. God expects us to work and blesses us through it.
Some of us overcorrect and swing to the other extreme. The busier the better.
If “idle hands are the devil’s workshop” then busyness is his playground.
What do you do when you’re at the top of the world one minute and scraping the bottom of the barrel the next?
Former major league pitcher Brian Holman has had to answer that very question … many times.
In 1999, his son David fell thirty feet from a ski-lift and suffered multiple severe injuries. When he got to the hospital, doctors ran an MRI and discovered David had a brain tumor. They successfully removed it, but David had a post-surgical stroke and needed extensive rehab to recover.
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.
