Daly Focus Blog
Preparing a child for adulthood is pretty serious business for parents. After all, the adult world is a competitive place, and we want our kids to be ready for it, don’t we?
That’s why we expect our children to do well in school and in their extracurricular activities. We even want them to behave with their siblings and the neighborhood kids. We parents understand how important it is for them to make good decisions in life.
What’s the biggest “do-over” you’d want as a parent?
If you’re like many parents, your answer is probably some variation on the theme, “I wish I would’ve spent more time with my kids.”
“I wish I would’ve taken my son to more baseball games.”
“I wish I would’ve tucked my daughter into bed more, instead of yelling, ‘Good night!’ from downstairs.”
“I wish I would’ve left work more often and shown up to their games and school activities.”
I doubt any of you picked, “I’d think up a lot more rules,” as your biggest do-over.
Do you allow yourself to grieve?
Some Christians push away feelings of sadness or anger, worried that those darker emotions indicate a lack of faith. It can certainly feel like God has abandoned us when we’re enduring emotional anguish so deep that we can feel it in our bones.
Think of the agony David was feeling when he wrote in Psalm 22, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death” (14-15).
I’m on my way to Washington, D.C., today for tomorrow’s National Prayer Breakfast and a host of meetings with key influencers. Before doing so, though, I wanted to share a few thoughts on the first ten days of the new administration.
Last night President Trump made good on his campaign promise to nominate a constitutionalist in the mold of the late Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court.
Immediately following the announcement, I posted the statement I sent to the media, where I share my sense of optimism surrounding Judge Gorsuch’s commitment to boldly stand up to the whims of culture, and have, to quote the late Justice Scalia, “the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.”
I’m not the only one praising the pick.
This is the statement I sent to the media tonight. -J.D.
Jim Daly statement on the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
I am greatly encouraged by the President’s nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court created by the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia last year. President Trump included Judge Gorsuch on his list of potential justices during his campaign, and he kept his promise to choose a candidate from that list.
Chuck Colson once said to me, “By age 10, your children’s moral compass is pretty well set.”
His wisdom confirmed what Jean and I already believed from our earliest days of parenting: we only had a few short years to impart biblical wisdom and a love for Jesus to our two boys. It’s a task that we’ve taken seriously ever since. But we also discovered early that “serious” doesn’t have to mean “dull” or “boring.”
Thankfully, there’s no magical “one way” for moms and dads to pass their faith on to their children.
I want to share a few pictures from today’s March for Life. I know many of you would love to be here with us, but can’t make the trip to Washington, D.C., so I wanted to bring the march to you. Isn’t beautiful to see the smiling faces of so many people marching for life?
There’s a risk in going too fast.
I’m reminded of the time a group of friends invited me to an afternoon of road racing at a Le Mans style race track. A buddy and I were handed the keys to Corvettes, Lamborghinis, and other high performance cars and given just one instruction: “Have fun.” The track had S-turns, hair pin curves, and straightaways where you could reach speeds in excess of 125 miles per hour if you were daring enough.
A television show that never ceases to fascinate me when I’m able to catch an episode is “Antiques Roadshow.” If you’ve never seen it, antique experts travel with the show from city to city and offer appraisals for the collectibles people always seem to have tucked away in their attics.
Here’s the part that gets me: Someone inevitably brings in a painting splashed with bizarre colors or an odd-shaped figurine that makes me wonder, “Why would anyone want something like that in their home?”
Then the appraisal comes, and I discover the item is worth a small fortune.
It’s pretty incredible how far some people will go to deny the humanity and life inside the womb.
Take yesterday’s article in The Atlantic as an example.
Originally titled, “How the Ultrasound Pushed the Idea That a Fetus Is a Person,” Moira Weigel, the author of the piece, twisted herself into a metaphorical pretzel trying to prove that the ultrasound doesn’t prove a preborn baby isn’t … human? Isn’t alive? The piece was so convoluted I’m still not entirely sure what I read.
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.
