Daly Focus Blog
A news roundup on the issues that matter most.
“How Many Kids Grow Up With Their Married Mom and Dad?”: Less than half, according to a new report by the Family Research Council. It finds 54 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds do not live in a home with their married mother and father.
The story of Pastor Lee-Jon-rak and his baby box – the topic of Focus’ upcoming film, “The Drop Box” – has earned a lot of media attention since the original article in the L.A.
I’ve previously shared how parents can pass along a lasting faith to their kids. In a nutshell, there are two things parents should do:
Live out an authentic, vibrant faith themselves
Help their children develop spiritual habits, like regular prayer and Scripture reading
But as times change and technology brings us increased convenience, I’ve wondered if an unintended consequence is that, in some areas, our digital life could potentially undermine our efforts to model the faith?
Do you know someone planning to get married?
Our new “Engaged! Marriage Preparation for Couples” app is designed to help men and women get ready for their new lives together as husband and wife.
Divided into 15 topics, the app provides introductory as well as in-depth Christian teaching and articles, and includes more than 16 hours of audio and video content designed for couples to review and discuss together.
Research shows that couples who devote time to premarital counselling are both happier in the short-term and more likely to avoid divorce, long-term.
The tragic images are almost impossible to see and process.
There on the shore of Libya stand 21 young Christian Egyptian men, each clad in an orange jumpsuit. Behind each man is a hooded radical Islamist, holding a knife.
We know what’s coming next.
If American Christians were ever tempted to believe martyrs are only people we read about in the Bible and history books, the 21 men who were brutally beheaded because they called Jesus Christ their Savior remind us nothing could be further from the truth.
Maybe you know this feeling a little too well.
You see other families from the outside, and they look exactly like what you envision a good Christian home to be. Their children don’t squabble, and they obey their parents with almost gleeful enthusiasm. Life seems perfect.
But your reality seems a lot different. You break up two or three spats between the kids before you even leave for church. And once you get there, you paint a smile on your face and answer everybody’s, “How’re you doing?” with a robotic, “I’m great.”
But deep inside you know things aren’t great.
Do you think of your marriage as a “magnificent obsession”?
Hopefully, you’re on the journey toward seeing your relationship in that light. But each of us – at different times in different ways – allows self-interest to tarnish our marriage’s potential.
Selfishness can creep into a relationship from the moment a man and a woman meet, even when they don’t mean for it to. In the initial months of dating, couples pursue a relationship because they like the way they feel when they’re together.
Allan Edwards is a pastor with the Presbyterian Church in America. He’s also married to Leeanne Edwards and the couple is expecting their first child in July.
Allan has also admitted to struggling with same-sex attraction.
In fact, he recently shared his story with National Public Radio. In the midst of the conversation, Allan said the reason he’s never acted on the attraction is because he believes homosexuality is a sin.
Some have suggested that Allan is denying his true identity and that he and his wife couldn’t possibly be happy.
For many of us, the issue of physician-assisted suicide was brought to our attention last year with the very public illness and death of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman who chose to end her own life with a lethal prescription after receiving a diagnosis of an aggressive form of cancer.
This pains me in so many ways, not the least of which is that it compounds the heartbreak of a horrible, terminal illness with the tragic choice of a young woman to take her own life.
Are you “blessed”?
There are many Christians, myself included, who would suggest that by the sheer nature of our Salvation in Jesus Christ, we are, indeed, a blessed people.
But if you asked a room full of people what it means to be “blessed,” I suspect you’d get a wide array of answers.
For some, to be blessed means to have health, wealth and a good family.
To others, to be blessed means to travel the world or climb a mountain.
September 15, 1963, was a normal Sunday morning in Birmingham, Alabama.
Until 10:22 A.M.
Then everything changed.
Carolyn, a teenager at the time, was making her prescribed rounds through her church, retrieving paperwork from each of the Sunday school classes. On her way up the stairs, she smiled and said good morning to four young girls – Cynthia, Addie, Denise, and Carole – who were headed into the bathroom.
As Carolyn passed the church office, she heard a phone ringing.
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.
