To experience wholeness, five desires of our hearts must be met:

Security. Who can I trust?

Identity. Who am I?

Belonging. Who wants me?

Purpose. Why am I alive?

Competence. What do I do well?

Each of those are listed in their correct order, by the way. If you feel secure, you’re more likely to discover the deepest passions and strengths of your identity. Out of those, you’ll discover your purpose and develop competence.

Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith May 30, 2023 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

On our Focus on the Family Broadcast with our guest author Wendy Speake, “Understanding the Goodness of God’s Word,” we’re discussing the topic of “feasting.” Not on food but on Scripture.

She’s written a great book called The 40-Day Feast: Taste and See the Goodness of God’s Word about how to ingest and savor the Bible and understand God more deeply.

The idea of feasting originated in the Garden of Eden. Before God made humans, he created the food to sustain them.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith May 26, 2023 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

To witness for Christ, each of us must cross what Pastor Rico Tice calls our “pain line.”

That’s the barrier that keeps us from sharing about Jesus because:

We don’t know what to say.

We don’t feel we’re “good enough” to adequately represent Christianity.

We fear rejection.

We’re avoiding pain.

My wife, Jean, is the only Christian among her four siblings. When her mom passed away, Jean called for a family conference. Everybody sat down in the living room, and Jean went through a detailed explanation of the Gospel and shared what her faith meant to her.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith May 23, 2023 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Even if you consider yourself an atheist, protecting religious freedom is still in your best interest because religious freedom is foundational to every other freedom you enjoy.

Among the freedoms our forefathers protected in the Constitution, religious freedom is first on the list. The freedom to worship – or not to worship – is ours simply because we exist. It is given to us by our Creator – that is, God himself.

That’s an important detail because if a freedom is given to us by the government then the government can also take it away.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith May 17, 2023 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Has reality crushed your dreams yet?

It will, you know.

Not all of them, of course. But enough. Maybe you never had children, the career you hoped for, the marriage you dreamed of, or you never attained certain goals. We all have our lists.

Author Chrystal Evans Hurst understands that struggle. Like you and me, she’s also walked the road of discontentment. In college, she didn’t handle her new-found adult freedom very well and became a teenage mom.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith May 15, 2023 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

For my latest podcast out this week, I sat down with bestselling author and thought leader, Arthur Brooks. Arthur is president emeritus of the American Enterprise Institute.

For over an hour, we discussed a variety of topics centered around a popular topic of worldly conversation: 

Happiness.

When I think of the subject matter, I think about an unforgettable trip I took to Jakarta, Indonesia, many years ago for a speaking engagement. If you’ve never been there, it has some of the worst smog of any city in the world.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith May 10, 2023 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

According to a World Health Organization bulletin, more than 300 million people are now living with depression, an increase of more than 18% between 2005 and 2015.

Author Dr. Gregory Jantz can personally relate to those who suffer from depression. Not only is he founder of The Center: A Place of Hope, a clinic for treating depression and other mental health issues, but he has also experienced depression himself.

At one time, he struggled to get out of bed in the morning, and life seemed dull and hopeless.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith May 10, 2023 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura

Does belief in God really help us survive tough times?

Millions of believers around the world say yes. And so does research out of Notre Dame and Ohio State University, which examined the role of faith in overcoming life’s hardships. The study drew a strong correlation between a lack of religious faith and what is known as “death by despair” – death caused by suicide or by drug or alcohol overdose. Researchers found that people who claim no religious faith are much more likely to seek an escape from life’s hardships through unhealthy means, sometimes tragically so.

Topics: Family and Home Tags: faith April 26, 2023 by Jim Daly with Paul Batura