Daly Focus Blog
“How much is enough?”
Somebody asked John D. Rockefeller that once. His answer?
“Just a little bit more.”
I wonder if most of us secretly agree with him. We try to be content, but it’s hard with so many shiny things to choose from and advertisers convincing us of needs we didn’t know we even had. We’re easily lulled into believing that we could be happy if we had just a little bit more.
But how much is enough?
As author and speaker Lee Strobel tells it, someone once came between him and his wife, Leslie, that almost destroyed their marriage. It wasn’t a co-worker or an old boyfriend.
It was Jesus Christ.
Leslie had become a Christian. Lee remained a staunch atheist.
Their worldviews were diametrically opposed to one another. The friction that created is why God gave us the sort of wisdom found in 2 Corinthians 6:14, which says, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers.”
Yokes were heavy wooden implements that were fitted over the necks of two animals, so they could pull a plow together.
Does this visual remind you of your parenting style?
You probably recognize that formula from a math class somewhere in your past. It guarantees that every time you add A and B together, you get C. So 2 + 2 always equals 4, and 1 + 5 always gives you 6. Every time. It’s simple. It’s reliable. It’s predictable.
That certainty is why formulas are the go-to parenting method for so many moms and dads.
The miraculous, hope-filled story of Easter might have been closer to a Shakespearean tragedy if God had left it up to the men.
Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and hanged himself. Peter denied Jesus three times. Thomas doubted the Resurrection. And all of the disciples hid fearfully behind locked doors for three days. And when they were told that Jesus had risen, the message “seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe it” (Luke 24:11, ESV).
Parenting can be messy.
From your children’s earliest days, you set boundaries, you discipline, you pour your life into your kids and trust that they’ll be drawn to your Christian faith and embrace it as their own. But one night, years later, your head hits the pillow, and you stare up at the ceiling through the darkness, distraught and wondering, “Where did we go wrong? We raised our kids in church. We prayed with them. We read the Bible to them.
“You may ask, ‘Why is God landing in this enemy-occupied world in disguise and starting a sort of secret society to undermine the devil? Why isn’t he landing en force, invading it?’ Well, Christians think He’s going to land in force. We don’t know when, but we can guess why. He’s delaying. He wants to give us the chance of joining His side freely.” – C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Profound truth like that is why C.S.
Monday I shared how the staff celebrated Focus on the Family’s 40th anniversary with a time of prayer and singing during our usual Monday morning stand-up meeting.
But I didn’t tell you the whole story.
Turns out, a few of us wanted to commemorate the milestone – and surprise the staff – in a very 1977 sort of way.
And what’s more 1977 than disco?
That’s right. Our preparation for Monday’s standup meeting included a disco ball, costumes… and a short, choreographed number to “Stayin’ Alive” for Focus on the Family Daily Broadcast co-host John Fuller and me.
There’s probably no more important word to define marriage than this one: love. But what is love, really? Is it simply an emotion we feel, or is it something deeper?
In some ways, you can’t fault most of us in the English-speaking world for being confused. The word love has itself become something of a generic term in American culture. The richness of its meaning has been lost.
Ancient Greek had four different words for love, each of them conveying a very particular nuance.
Life Magazine once published a list of the “Most Important Events of the Millennium.” Among the top ten were the discovery of germ theory, the Holocaust, and the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Number one on that list was the Gutenberg Bible printed in the 1450s and the first book to be mass produced. According to Life Magazine, no other event in the past 1,000 years has changed the world as dramatically as the Bible becoming available to the common person.
Trevor Hendershot is quite a young man. I think you’d like meeting him.
Cheerleaders in his high school once made banners to cheer him on, and he was so popular he was voted homecoming king. He was a little quirky, too. He had a habit of loudly singing Christian songs in the hallway before, during, and after school. He gave everyone he talked to a high-five, a hug, or a fist bump.
He’s now in his mid-20’s and works for the Los Angeles Angels, a Major League Baseball franchise.
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.
