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Don’t take Small Improvements for Granted
We often yearn for big changes in our lives, but often, it’s only possible to accomplish these by making one small improvement at a time. For example, a musician masters his instrument by practising every day, making small improvements to his technique.
Baby Steps
My baby is learning to walk. I have to hold her, and she clings to my fingers because she is still unsteady on her feet. She is afraid of slipping, but I’m there to steady her and watch over her. As she walks with my help, her eyes sparkle with gratitude, happiness, and security. But sometimes she cries when I don’t let her take dangerous paths, not realizing that I am protecting her.
Like my baby girl, we often need someone to watch over us, to guide and steady us in our spiritual walk. And we have that someone—God our Father—who…
Transformed in His Image
In a society that has seemingly dismissed the issues of the heart, outward appearances have become the source of determining beauty and self-worth. This excerpt from Regina Franklin’s book Who Calls Me Beautiful? offers insights to help you recognize the value of your identity in God. Discover how you can get your heart in the...
Are there Real Friendships in this World?
Whom will you call a friend? Is it just someone you can have a meal and watch movies with? Or is it someone you can chat and gossip with? What kind of person is he or she? We often describe a true friend as someone who will stick with us through thick and thin, who values us, and who won’t hurt or betray us.
Disappointing Heroes
A recent book that puts a fictional flavor on a slice of US history portrays Old West gunslingers Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday as shiftless bums. In an interview with National Public Radio, the author said of the real Earp, “He didn’t do anything remarkable his whole life, ever.” Through the years, in books and Hollywood movies, they’ve become heroes. Yet reputable historical accounts show that they were not.
In contrast, the Bible is full of flawed people who became real heroes. But don’t lose sight of the vital source of their heroic actions. The object of their faith was God,…
Whom Will You Go To?
Imagine you’re in deep trouble. Some people are after you and you need somewhere to hide. Home isn’t an option—they know where you live. Whom will you go to? A dependable friend, probably. Someone you can trust, who is reliable, and who is always on your side.
When Things Don’t Go Well
The first words that many people like to quote when misfortune hits are: “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). But that’s hard to believe in hard times. I once sat with a man who had lost his third son in a row, and I listened as he lamented, “How can this tragedy work for my good?” I had no answer but to sit silently and mourn with him. Several months later, he was thankful as he said, “My sorrow is…
Jesus’ Blueprint For Prayer
Communicating with God is as important to your spiritual well-being as breathing is to your physical life. Discover how you can develop and maintain a meaningful prayer life with Haddon Robinson’s practical and insightful study of “The Lord’s Prayer” in Matthew 6. Get a better understanding and a new perspective of one of the most beloved passages of the New Testament.
Friends Through Thick and Thin
Without my dear college friends and sisters, my wedding would not have been possible. A photo of my bridesmaids shows them in their pretty dresses and bearing bright smiles, but these belie the many hours and days of frantic efforts to put a wedding together in spite of a famously indecisive bride.
It’s What We Do
My father was critically injured when he took a bullet in the leg as a second lieutenant leading his men on Hill 609 in North Africa during World War II. Dad was never again 100 percent physically. I was born several years after this, and when I was young I didn’t even know he had been wounded. I found out later when someone told me. Although he felt constant pain in his leg, my dad never complained about it, and he never used it as an excuse for not providing for our family.
My parents loved the Savior and raised us…
Take a world-famous runner and U.S. Congressman teamed with a passionate firecracker whose mission is to tell the world about Jesus, and you get a dynamic duo—Jim and Anne Ryun.…
Read"We can trust God to provide what we need when we need it." Author Carol Kuykendall says that's the lesson she began to learn 20 years before her Stage 4…
ListenReflecting God’s Glory
The 12th-century Chinese artist Li Tang painted landscapes animated with people, birds, and water buffalo. Because of his genius with fine line sketches on silk, Li Tang is considered a master of Chinese landscape art. For centuries, artists from around the world have depicted what they see in God’s art gallery of creation: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). The Bible tells us that our creativity as human beings comes from being made in the image of the Master Creator (Gen. 1:27).
God chose artists who worked with wood, gold, silver, bronze,…
Silent Helper
The discovery of penicillin revolutionized health care. Prior to the 1940s, bacterial infections were often fatal. Since then, penicillin has saved countless lives by killing harmful bacteria. The men who recognized its potential and developed it for widespread use won a Nobel Prize in 1945.
Long before the discovery of penicillin, other silent killers were at work saving lives by destroying bacteria. These silent killers are white blood cells. These hard workers are God’s way of protecting us from disease. No one knows how many invasions they have stopped or how many lives they have saved. They receive little recognition for…
Einstein and Jesus
We remember Albert Einstein for more than his disheveled hair, big eyes, and witty charm. We know him as the genius and physicist who changed the way we see the world. His famous formula of E=mc2 revolutionized scientific thought and brought us into the nuclear age. Through his “Special Theory of Relativity” he reasoned that since everything in the universe is in motion, all knowledge is a matter of perspective. He believed that the speed of light is the only constant by which we can measure space, time, or physical mass.
Long before Einstein, Jesus talked about the role of light…
