Jim Daly

Relishing the Christmas Season

Alexandra Kuykendall knew she had to do Christmas differently.

Her job required a significant amount of her time, and her children and husband wanted a good chunk of the rest. Add to that visitors who were staying in her home and the usual accoutrements of Christmas – food, gifts, decorations, etc. – and she was overwhelmed.

After the holidays, even a non-committal, “Fine,” felt like a lie when friends and co-workers asked her, “How was your Christmas?”

She encountered something all of us go through at one time or another at Christmas.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, christmas, faith, holidays

Remembering the Pilgrims’ Journey

It’s easy to forget the origins of the holidays we celebrate. For a lot of people, Thanksgiving is about family, football, and pumpkin pie.

That’s all good stuff. But it’s also good to remind ourselves of the true origin of Thanksgiving and to remember how grateful we should be to live in a nation that has been immeasurably blessed by God.

While you’re fixing your Thanksgiving feast today, or heading over to Grandma’s in the car, tune into our Focus on the Family Broadcast “Remembering the Pilgrims’ Journey.”

Professor Jay Milbrandt, a professor at Bethel University in Minnesota, is with us to peel back the layers of history and get us back to what the first Thanksgiving was all about.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, family, holidays, thanksgiving

Did the Pilgrims Really Wear Hats with Buckles?

Despite the seemingly unprecedented animosity directed towards people of Christian faith these days, religious persecution is not a new concept.

The Pilgrims who first established the Plymouth Colony in 1620 had encountered more than their fair share of religious bias prior to leaving England. They came here seeking religious liberty—one of the very same principles that would later be enshrined in our Constitution.

I recently had the opportunity to interview an expert on the Pilgrims for the Focus on the Family Broadcast.

Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events/ Family and Home

Reducing Drama in Your Relationships

The holiday season can be one of the most joyful times of the year. But it can also be one of the most stressful.

Spending time with family during Thanksgiving and Christmas sounds enjoyable in July and August. But once November and December arrive, you realize how much needs to get done, and you remember what’s it like to be in a house filled with people who have different interests, different traditions, even differing political and spiritual viewpoints.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, drama, family, holidays, relationships

Calming Your Fears

Remember Goliath? In 1 Samuel, he taunted the Israelites, saying, “Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us” (v.9).

Author Deborah Pegues encourages her readers to imagine their fear as a giant like Goliath. If you overcome it, if you conquer it, your fear will serve you.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, fear

CBS Sunday Morning Show Left Out Jeff Johnston’s Powerful Testimony About Leaving Homosexuality

CBS Sunday Morning recently ran a story about what they called “conversion therapy” – a vague, broad term used by opponents of professional therapy or spiritual support for those with unwanted homosexuality.

They depicted some pretty extreme and even abusive practices. They also interviewed our staff member Jeff Johnston. Unfortunately, they left out an important detail about his background. Let me allow him to explain:

You’d think that a segment critical of therapy for unwanted homosexual attraction would at least acknowledge there’s another side to the story – especially when one of the people you’re interviewing has a powerful testimony about how counseling for his unwanted same-sex attraction did, in fact, contribute to his journey away from homosexuality.

Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events Tags: events, faith, homosexuality, news

Finding Strength in the Midst of Disappointment

Genesis says that we were created perfect in the Garden of Eden. Revelation 22 describes the end of the age when God will create a new heaven and new earth, and our perfection will be restored.

Therein lies the rub: Between Eden and eternity, life is filled with disappointment, and we don’t always know how to handle it well. We push disappointment aside. We ignore it. We numb it. We bury it. We doubt God’s love for us.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith

Enjoying Marriage at Any Age

“For a good time, call HOME!”

That should be a bumper sticker. It’s actually pastor Ted Cunningham’s encouragement to men and women to invest in their marriage.

He says you get out of your relationship what you put into it. That means enjoying life and marriage is a decision – a choice you make – not merely an outcome or something you wait for. Compatibility is something you create by choosing to invest your time and resources into your relationship.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, marriage

EXCLUSIVE: Inside the Investiture Service of Justice Brett Kavanaugh

By: Tim Goeglein

The late/great novelist Tom Wolfe once posited that there would arrive a moment where fiction would lose its relevance because the reality of American life was so much more compelling and, at turns, unbelievable.

Such was the week or so after the midterm elections in Washington DC. It was a little like living inside a dynamic, almost surreal novel.

On Capitol Hill, the balance of power shifted from red to blue in the House of Representatives.

Continue ReadingTopics: Current Events Tags: events, government, supreme court

Keeping Love Alive During Deployment

Two days after Jocelyn Green and her husband married, the military relocated them from Washington, D.C. to Alaska. A few weeks later – on their one-month anniversary, in fact – her husband kissed her goodbye and left for deployment.

Military couples can relate to the uncertainty and stress deployment causes. They can also identify with the challenges the Greens faced once they reunited. Jocelyn and her husband expected their reunion to feel like a second honeymoon.

Continue ReadingTopics: Family and Home Tags: broadcast, faith, family, marriage, military