Daly Focus Blog
When Pat decided to have an abortion, she was convinced it was the right thing to do.
Her first marriage had ended a few years before as a teenager when her husband, also a teen, abandoned her, leaving her with a newborn son. She tried to pick up the broken pieces of her life by enrolling in college despite the responsibilities she carried as a single mom. As a student, she wrote articles for the National Organization for Women and wholeheartedly supported abortion as a woman’s right to choose.
How would you define wisdom?
Merriam-Webster defines it as “accumulated philosophic or scientific learning” or the “ability to discern inner qualities and relationships.”
Yet, for Christians, wisdom is so much more.
It was Solomon who wrote that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Proverbs 9:10).
Just last month, Focus on the Family Board Member Rev. Dr. Ken Fentress (who is also the senior minister of the Montrose Baptist Church in Rockville, Maryland) spoke to the staff about four types of wisdom the Bible teaches about, and how they translate in the workplace.
Teaching kids to be respectful isn’t always easy. Just when you think they’ve learned how they should behave in certain settings, they throw it all right out the window.
I’ll never forget the time my older son, Trent, did that. He was just a little guy at the time, maybe 4 or 5. I was out of town when my wife, Jean, called me almost in tears over Trent’s behavior. He had thrown a world class fit in the grocery line over a candy bar and refused to calm down.
A few weeks ago, I dedicated my blog to the subject of parenting with grace. It was based on a great conversation we had earlier this month with our broadcast guest Jeannie Cunnion, who explained the reasons why parents can’t offer their children grace if they haven’t experienced it themselves.
It was such helpful information, we recorded another program with Jeannie. This time she’ll help us rethink discipline strategies that strip our parenting of grace, rather than enhance it.
Job’s friends have endured a lot of criticism through the centuries … and justifiably so.
I’m sure you recall that at the height of Job’s suffering they each, one by one, let loose a barrage of accusations about how Job’s pain and misfortune were all his fault.
Maybe they meant well. Maybe they thought they were offering Job solutions to the mysterious predicament overtaking him. “Who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off?
As I told you recently in my blog, I was deeply saddened by the passing of my friend Dr. Gary Smalley almost two weeks ago.
Hundreds of you responded on my blogsite and through Focus’ various social media outlets with your condolences, fond memories, and thoughtful recollections about the countless ways Dr. Smalley positively influenced your marriages and your families.
The Smalley family and close friends are honoring Gary in a memorial service tomorrow in Branson, MO, at the College of the Ozarks chapel at 3PM CST.
Proverbs 31 is the quintessential description of a wise, virtuous woman. She’s God-fearing and lives her life with purpose, diligence, and grace.
But there’s another woman in Proverbs who doesn’t get quite as much attention. She’s found in chapter seven.
In contrast to the Proverbs 31 woman, the Proverbs 7 woman is the prototypical “wild thing.” She’s rowdy and has lost her moorings, deciding she’s going to make her own decisions about how to live her life, about her sexuality, and about how to interact with men.
Quick, name someone, dead or alive, you’d like to have dinner with.
Do you have the name of that person in your mind?
Who is it?
Harriet Tubman? Bill Gates? The Apostle Paul?
Some kids were also asked who they would most like to have dinner with … Watch the video to learn what they answered:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wfbY3i4FY0
Parents are the most important and influential people to their children. I hope this video both encouraged you in your job of raising your kids and inspired you to make time for shared meals.
Just a few wayward sparks.
That’s all it takes for a fire to burn through an entire city, as it did in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, one of the largest disasters in American history.
In popular accounts from the time, Catherine O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern in a humble barn on DeKoven Street. What started as a small fire quickly grew into an inferno that destroyed miles of homes and razed Chicago’s business district.
Here’s an important parenting question:
What if your hands were empty, but I asked you to give me one of the apples you were holding?
That’s not a trick question, a riddle, or some odd math problem from your junior high days. It’s a simple question that makes an equally simple point.
We can’t give away something we don’t have.
How does that concept relate to parenting? In this way: We can’t parent our children with God’s grace if we haven’t embraced it ourselves.
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.
