Daly Focus Blog
Do you know your “why”?
God’s purpose for your spiritual journey, for your work, and for your family starts with your “why.”
People ask, “How will I serve God? Where will I serve God? When will I serve God?” Unless you tackle the “why” question, everything else becomes a mountain that prevents you from moving forward – your finances, your background, your education, your training, your age, and so on. If you know your why, those mountains somehow don’t appear as big or as insurmountable.
For many of us, busyness is like a badge of honor. We take pride in running from the moment our feet hit the floor in the morning to the moment our heads hit the pillow at night.
But busyness can also be a tool of the enemy. It distracts us from what really matters in life. We can’t do it all. Sooner or later, something has to give.
Recent surveys detail what people say they’re sacrificing to their busyness:
56 percent lost sleep
52 percent cut back on recreation
51 percent quit hobbies
44 percent spent less time with friends
34 percent sacrificed time with their families
The secular survey didn’t ask about faith, but time with the Lord is often one of the first things to go when we’re too busy.
Dimas Salaberrios grew up in Queens, New York. By age 10, he had discovered the seedy underbelly of the city ruled by gangs and drugs and had mapped out his future.
He wanted to become the “Street God.”
He became a drug dealer at age 11. By his early twenties, he’d been arrested nine times, but never served time in jail. His father knew a lot of judges, and his mother had the money to protect Dimas with well-paid lawyers.
This week we’re celebrating the 500th episode of The Boundless Show, a national radio program and podcast hosted by Lisa Anderson, who also serves as the director of young adult outreach here at Focus.
If you’ve never listened to an episode of Boundless, let me fill you in.
The show is fun and feisty, and usually features a lot of laughter thanks to Lisa’s unique take on pop culture and tell-it-like-it-is style.
But more than anything, The Boundless Show is also ministry.
It’s been called “the long goodbye.”
Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most unsettling situations a family can encounter.
An estimated 5.4 million people in this country have Alzheimer’s.
One in three over 85 are diagnosed with dementia of some sort.
For adults over 65, the number is one out of nine.
Every 66 seconds, another person is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
Dementia is an umbrella term that encompasses many different diseases, of which Alzheimer’s is the largest group.
Sheri Rose Shepherd was crowned Mrs. United States in 1994. That’s quite an achievement for anyone. But for Sheri Rose, it was a long, hard journey.
She didn’t deserve recognition, applause, or self-worth. At least, that’s the message everybody kept driving like a spike through her soul.
Her English teacher once told her, “Sheri Rose, you were born to be a loser. You will never amount to anything in life.”
Her mother mailed her what Sheri Rose thought was a gift.
Some parents will understand these comments by Dena Yohe so personally and intimately they’ll feel like they could have written them themselves. Of raising a troubled child, she said:
“We had so much guilt and shame as parents, especially because our children were our ministry. We took our parenting seriously. I chose not to work. I stayed home, so I could focus all of my attention, my effort, and my energy into who our children would become.
Kathleen Fucci met, John, her future husband, on a blind date. She was 38-years-old at the time, had never been married, and didn’t have children.
The mutual friend who arranged their date began his description of John by saying, “Um … why don’t you sit down?”
He told Kathleen that John was a widower with three children. His wife, Jeanine, had died from cancer the year before at the age of 34.
Despite the uncertainty Kathleen and John felt going into that first encounter, their relationship blossomed.
Dr. Gary Chapman never asks troubled couples, “Do you want to work on your marriage?”
Wanting something is a function of the emotions, and emotions rely on desire to get things moving.
That’s why Dr. Chapman asks troubled couples, “Will you work on your marriage?” The will involves decisions, not feelings. If a couple can say yes to that question, then good things can happen with the right guidance.
Some couples are headed for a divorce because they don’t know any other way to resolve their conflict.
Sharing a blog post from a few years back… the sentiments are the same, and the content is timely given the start of school for many kids around the nation. -J.D.
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Summertime is drawing to a close, so I’ve been thinking about some of my favorite teachers from down through the years. I have many; here are memories of just a few.
In kindergarten there was Mrs. Smith. I went to school that first day with my heels in the pavement and then didn’t want to leave by the time the bell began to ring.
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.
