From time to time I hear men refer to spending time with their children while their wife is out of the house as “babysitting.” Remember, we are not talking about them watching someone else’s children. They keep their kids by themselves for a few hours and call it “babysitting.” While it is easy to criticize men who say such foolish things, it serves to remind us how often men struggle to know the right thing to do in parenting. We... Read more
In the last several years, observers of American church life have noted that the definition of a regular church attendee is changing. With increasing affluence, mobility, commitments, and entertainment options, many Christians gather with their church family less often than they did ten years ago. Previously, a regular church attendee was a person who “only” gathered with their church one time a week. Now a regular attendee is a person who may attend twice a month. We don’t often think... Read more
Maybe it has something to do with turning forty over the summer, but I have spent a lot of time this year thinking about what it means to live a joyful life. I have become convinced that one of the greatest enemies to joyful living is our constant addiction to technology. Because we spend so much time staring at our phones, we don’t have the productivity at our jobs that we should, we don’t spend enough time outside, we ignore... Read more
For the past several years, I’ve been reading through Wendell Berry’s Port William novels. Berry, who is a writer and farmer from Kentucky, uses the stories of life in the fictional town of Port William from 1888 through 2008 to show the importance of responsible farming, avoiding debt, and connection to people and a place. Currently comprising eight novels and forty-four short stories, the Port William novels reflect a deep understanding of human nature, relationships, and how we are shaped... Read more
This year I have been giving time to reading on the effects that our digital culture is having on our lives. This journey is taken me through some works that are not explicitly Christian like Deep Work, The Lonely American, Irresistible, and Alone Together. (This week I picked up World Without Mind and The Tech-Wise Family, which is explicitly Christian.) Tony Reinke approaches the issue from a God-centered perspective in his book 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You. In looking at how we think... Read more
Like most things in life, marriages are not static. It may feel like there are times when we settle into comfortable seasons, but marriages aren’t like McDonalds’ chicken nuggets. If we ignore them for a week, they will not look the same when we come back. Every marriage is growing stronger or weakening. There is no exception. Marriages grow because the husband and wife are growing. Our marriages don’t exist in some strange limbo where they aren’t affected by our... Read more
A few weeks ago, I experienced my first panic attack in over a year. My hand went numb, it felt like someone was sitting on my chest, and I had no idea why I felt this way. This didn’t start happening to me until about a decade ago. Now, this unwelcome friend rears its ugly head without warning and it finds a way to stay for a while. I don’t think I have ever talked about this in public. Forty-year-old... Read more
I turned 40 a few months ago and have started experiencing some of the things associated with growing older that I have heard about for most of my life. For example, I have noticed that my physical health is something that I have to stay on top of. If I don’t actively work at getting in better shape, I go backward quickly. I can’t rely on all the miles I ran in my early 30’s. I have to be working... Read more
Do you sometimes find yourself being envious of the people who start a Bible reading plan, follow it faithfully, and stick through until the end? Then, they start the same Bible reading plan the next year and persevere to the end again. I’m sorry, I just struggle with doing that. Sometimes I find that I get halfway through a Bible reading plan, get bogged down, and cannot go any further. This used to create a load of guilt in my... Read more
At no time in human history has the practice of prayer been easy. Even in Paul’s day, he had to instruct the Colossian church to devote themselves to prayer and to stay alert in it. The disciples who were with the Lord Jesus on the night before he died succumbed to sleep instead of giving even an hour to prayer. So, while prayer has never been an easy practice to give ourselves to, the age in which we live seems... Read more
One Degree to Another
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