Daly Focus Blog
Here’s an important parenting question:
What if your hands were empty, but I asked you to give me one of the apples you were holding?
That’s not a trick question, a riddle, or some odd math problem from your junior high days. It’s a simple question that makes an equally simple point.
We can’t give away something we don’t have.
How does that concept relate to parenting? In this way: We can’t parent our children with God’s grace if we haven’t embraced it ourselves.
Happiness is serious business in America.
Our Declaration of Independence says it plainly: We all have the right to pursue happiness. And pursue it we do. We leave no stone unturned in our search for true happiness.
People marry because they’re happy and divorce because they’re not. Advertisers promise happiness to us if we’ll just buy their car, their beer, or their latest technological gadget.
But do we ever stop and ask ourselves – as believers who live in a land of abundance and opportunity, and who have virtually every material blessing right at our fingertips – why are so many of us miserable?
Should Christians befriend members of the homosexual or transgendered community?
Should Christians engage in the political process?
If so, what hope should we place in the government for resolution to society’s problems?
Should Christians attend a friend’s same-sex wedding? What if the ceremony is for a parent’s son or daughter?
I frequently get questions like these when I travel and have an opportunity to meet you, friends of Focus on the Family. I appreciate hearing your perspective because it helps me keep a finger on the pulse of the family and the Christian community.
Has the Holy Spirit ever prompted you to go outside your comfort zone?
It recently happened to one of our team members, Sue McFadden.
Sue is a fun lady with a witty personality. She’s a regular on Facebook where she entertains her friends with her love of the Broncos as well as bits and pieces of her life. This weekend, Sue penned a post about what started out as an ordinary, mundane trip to the grocery store… but ended with a divine appointment.
Tragedy can strike suddenly – just ask Monty Williams, an assistant basketball coach for the Oklahoma City Thunder.
On Feb. 9, Ingrid, Monty’s wife of 20 years, died in a head-on car accident after another driver crossed the center lane and hit Ingrid at 78 miles per hour, nearly twice the speed limit.
In a split second Monty’s world was brutally shaken. What started out as an ordinary day ended as one that would forever change the Williams family.
Funeral plans for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia were announced earlier this morning. The body of the first Italian-American to serve on the bench will lie in repose in the Great Hall of the high court this coming Friday.
His funeral, which will be open to the public, will take place on Saturday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.
It’s impossible to overstate the effect Justice Scalia had on the Supreme Court during his nearly 30-year tenure.
It was while she sat on the beach that Vicki realized her life was crashing down around her.
She watched up and down the coastline as families played together, building sand castles, splashing in the waves, creating memories.
But Vicki sat there alone, sobbing. Her kids were hundreds of miles away with a babysitter. Her husband, Bill, was back in their hotel room, sick, trying to survive withdrawals from his drug addiction.
The weight of her emptiness and loneliness was crushing.
Give her an opportunity, and Pamela Christian will gladly tell you about the day she died.
It all began during an afternoon of tennis with some girlfriends. She had been battling stomach problems all morning, a problem she dismissed as indigestion. But after just a few practice swings she realized she was feeling short of breath and light headed as well, too much for the amount of exertion her warmup should have required of her.
In only a matter of minutes, she knew she was in trouble.
Kaing Khek Ieu didn’t deserve God’s grace.
In the mid-1990s, he was a teacher living in Cambodia when he was invited by a friend to attend a Christian leadership training event held by Christopher LaPel, a pastor living in Los Angeles but born in Cambodia.
In the midst of the services, Kaing Khek Ieu approached LaPel and said, “I don’t have any hope. I’ve done too many horrible things. God can’t forgive me.”
Christopher had never met the man, but assured him that no one is beyond hope.
A colleague of mine was recently visiting some friends at an assisted living complex here in Colorado Springs. Sitting with men and women in the twilight of their lives, he asked them about their respective marriages. Many were now widowed but others were still married, some for fifty and sixty years.
What had marriage taught them about love and life?
What advice would they give to couples just starting out?
If they had to do it all over again, what would they do differently?
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.
