Resolving Conflicts, a Rough Draft of Good Ideas
Reading Time: 8 minutes Many of the following ideas are sourced from “How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide” as well as the Bible.
Marriage Has to Be About More Than Happiness
Reading Time: 2 minutes If marriage is just based on happiness (s/he makes me happy/money is good/what a hottie), it’s easily threatened.
What About Your Terrible Future
Reading Time: 3 minutes On atheism, there are not actually various possible futures. That is to say, there is actually only one future that is ever possible. And there is little difference between you and a rock.
In Their Greed They Will Exploit You with False Words
Reading Time: 2 minutes People will always find ways to extract money from others by telling them what they’d like to hear. For many, the “health, wealth, and happiness” message is very appealing.
Improving Your Relationship with God
Reading Time: 7 minutes Imagine being married and not really knowing your spouse at all—in fact, imagine if the only thing you knew about your spouse was what others told you about them. Would that be healthy?
Three Looks at the Trinity
Reading Time: 5 minutes Three different thoughts on the Trinity and God, from three different angles.
An Area I Need to Work On: My Dope Addiction
Reading Time: 3 minutes The sweet, addicting dopamine drip of performative moralizing is a hard habit to kick, and one that I need to work on. Here’s why.
How to Change the World
Reading Time: < 1 minute Although “bringing people to Christ” sounds great, it is much better and more challenging to bring Christ (in us) to people.
Assault vs Leadership
Reading Time: < 1 minute You don’t lead by hitting people over the head—that’s assault, not leadership.
Love and Respect
Reading Time: 2 minutes “I just want to be loved and valued. I want to be number one in his life. Unconditional love…that’s what I want.” We understand this. She needs his love. She needs love when she’s firing on all cylinders, and she needs it even more when she’s worn down—the kids are going full-barbarian, the water heater’s out, and the stir-fry dinner just got complicated by a lack of rice. “I need…
How to be Happy
Reading Time: 2 minutes Give me enough of what I want so that I’ll be happy!
Pressing Out Blood
Reading Time: 2 minutes Sometimes I don’t realize how serious my sins are, and there’s probably a reason for that.
General Advice on Picking a Quality Mate
Reading Time: 2 minutes Some advice I was given on picking a mate.
The Sound of Silence
Reading Time: 2 minutes Truth dies in darkness; hope dies in silence.
An Invulnerable Christian Man
Reading Time: 2 minutes One of my friends told me how she was concerned that I wasn’t vulnerable. We listened to Brene Brown’s “The Power of Vulnerability” together so that I could understand her better.
Communicating with Christians
Reading Time: 2 minutes Communication is the lifeblood of relationships. Do you know what a “phatic” communication is?
Me Trying to Comfort People Awkwardly
Reading Time: < 1 minute I feel so awkward trying to comfort people and I just don’t seem to know the right things to say.
Little Children and Sin—A Knowledge of Good and Evil
Reading Time: 3 minutes Are little kids born sinful?
The Unstoppable Freight Train of Sin
Reading Time: < 1 minute It’s always BNSF.
Obedience to Government
Reading Time: 4 minutes Grab your leash! We’ve some training to do.
Suicide, Violence, and Wise Fathers (+Podcast)
Reading Time: 2 minutes Fatherlessness is the single best predictor of violence in young men. Masculinity can become “toxic” in the absence of the wise Patriarch—but it’s just an aggressive form of sin.
Inexorable Depression, Death, God’s Plan, and Unfathomable Power: A Tale of Life
Reading Time: 9 minutes The answer to the pop quiz is “depression,” you lunatics! That was basically a free 100, so if you failed, you should probably be bearsprayed.
Family Without Blood
Reading Time: 2 minutes “The sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal.” —C.S. Lewis, Weight of Glory
Refusing to Abandon People: As Soon as Zion Travailed, She Brought Forth Her Sons
Reading Time: 4 minutes Have you ever been hurt or disgusted by someone? Have you wanted to leave them to drown in their own, willful mistakes?
Be steadfast in an age of impermanence.
Spiritual Math: The Sin Wave + Confession: The Most Difficult Act in the World
Reading Time: 6 minutes A sin wave has ups and downs, but it has no actual growth over time.
Is this your life?