Daly Focus Blog
Does your marriage stress you out? If not, there’s still a good chance that you’re bringing stress into your marriage.
Either way, how do you handle it?
The natural inclination for a lot of couples is to seek stress relief in non-relational ways that enable them to hide – things like drugs and alcohol, or even behaviors like shopping, gambling, excessive cleaning, or binge-watching television – all of which lead to addiction, unhealthy obsessions, or lashing out at other people.
Sometimes God calls us to do things that are bigger than us – so big that all we can do is rely on His strength to get us through.
Captain Ron Johnson experienced that truth in an inspiring way. He’s a retired African-American police officer who became well-known after the governor of Missouri assigned him to lead security efforts in Ferguson, Missouri after a young black male, Michael Brown, was killed by a white police officer.
As officials attempt to continue piecing together the motives behind last weekend’s horrific cold-blooded murder sprees in both El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, attention has turned once again to the role violent video games play in these types of attacks.
In remarks from the White House earlier this week, President Trump suggested they were likely one factor in a long list of many.
“We must stop the glorification of violence in our society,” he said.
Grammy-award winning singer and songwriter Russ Taff grew up in church, but he was an adult the first time he was truly able to understand God’s love.
His dad was a pastor who preached what Russ calls a “hard Gospel.” That means there were rules about clothes, rules about hair, rules about attitude. Rules, rules, rules – so many that his father couldn’t live up to his own standards. His father relapsed with alcohol again and again for years and, ultimately, didn’t stop drinking until he died.
This weekend’s murderous rampages in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, that claimed a total of 31 lives, join an ever-growing list of incidents of mass violence in America.
Whenever horror of this magnitude occurs our focus almost always turns to motive. Although it’s impossible to make sense of the inexplicable, we still want to know what’s behind the evil.
For these two separate tragedies, less than 24 hours apart, the early evidence seems clear both murderers were driven by hatred.
So here’s the scenario. It’s a weeknight, and your child has spent most of the evening on the same school assignment. It’s pretty clear he doesn’t understand the information. To top it off, he’s brought home a note from the teacher warning you about a failing grade.
What do you do?
Many parents immediately assume the worst. They think their child has a behavior problem, difficulty learning, or is just plain lazy. But most of the time school challenges like this aren’t a crisis.
Imagine two keys.
Now imagine threading those keys onto a key ring.
Here’s the question: are either of those keys more complete now that they are joined together than they were individually?
Answer: no.
And neither will you be if you’re single and hoping to be married one day. “Singlehood” is often considered synonymous with “incomplete” – as in, there’s something unfinished in you that only a spouse can complete.
As romantic as Hollywood makes that scenario sound, it’s not really true.
Deborah Pegues was once vice president of MCA Universal Studios. She headed up the venture capital division that was responsible for starting new companies. It was a high-risk, high stress business. Her role frequently required her to confront people.
You might even say she got good at it.
Which is precisely the reason we’ve invited her to our studios to talk about how to confront someone effectively. We’re airing the conversation on our Focus on the Family Broadcast titled “Facing Confrontation with Grace.”
Deborah says most people try to avoid confrontation because it’s hard, and it doesn’t feel good.
I was deeply saddened to hear the recent news regarding well-known author and speaker Joshua Harris. First, Harris and his wife, Shannon, announced they have chosen to divorce after 21 years of marriage. Harris made his announcement in an Instagram post.
A few days later, in another post, he declared that he’d undergone “a massive shift” regarding his faith in Jesus and that he no longer considers himself a Christian.
Although Joshua suggests that these decisions were the result of “significant changes” he’d undergone in recent years, he hasn’t specifically described what has led to such dramatic shifts in his philosophy and worldview.
You remember the story of the Prodigal Son. Traditionally, it’s told from the point of view of the younger son who demands his father’s money and comes crawling home in shame after he squanders it all.
But I wonder if we should call it the story of the prodigal sons. The older son stayed home, but he didn’t have the heart of his father. He rejected his brother and wouldn’t even come to celebrate that his younger brother had been rescued from the clutches of death.
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.
