Note from Andrea: This article concludes a two-part series on prayer by a special guest blogger, my sweet, thoughtful husband, Adam Graham. The first part was posted last Thursday. Superficially, the Kendrick Brothers’ latest film, War Room appears to say, “If you pray in faith, your marriage will be saved. If your marriage isn’t going well, it’s because you haven’t prayed enough.” We’ve known people who have had marriages fall apart in spite of their prayers and efforts to fight for that marriage, so that doesn’t ring true.   I don’t think that’s the intended point. When the film opens,  Elizabeth is a realtor andRead More →

A revised reprint of a timeless article from May 11, 2007.   The Church is a family, not a daycare. Yet many churches say “when you’re here, you’re family” à la the Olive Garden. While we focus on numbers like a business, some in our churches today have been raised in church their whole lives and still have little understanding of the gospel. The surrounding culture says, “there are no absolute boundaries of right and wrong. We each get to create our own, and all of our contradicting boundaries are valid as long as we’re each doing what is right for us.” How should we respond in theRead More →

The most dangerous anger I’ve witnessed lately is righteous indignation. The reason it is dangerous is humans aren’t righteous. We are most prone to do ugly things to each other when we’re angry and either it is justified or we believe we are justified. [tweetthis remove_twitter_handles=”true” remove_hidden_hashtags=”true” remove_hidden_urls=”true”]Most dangerous anger: righteous indignation. We’re most prone to do ugly things when justifiably angry.[/tweetthis] It saddens me that so many grown adults behave as if they honestly believe “I am angry, and you were wrong, therefore you are no longer worthy of my respect, kindness, or being treated fairly, and I have every right to lash outRead More →

  For Christian women who struggle with feeling like we’re not enough. Warning: I cried. Are you enough? With God, you don’t have to be. He has enough. His love can make you enough. The poised, young professional woman in white came boldly before the throne of God, dragging alongside her a battered, bruised little girl in filthy rags. “Lord, I’m surrendering this to you, my broken, wounded heart. I caught her running away from you and thinking wrong things again, so I’ve taken her captive, brought her back, and am presenting her to you again. I know she’s not much, but she’s all IRead More →

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” — Psalm 90:12 Grief often causes a “circling the wagons” reaction, automatically drawing together what is left. Sometimes we’d been letting the busyness of this age rob us of time with a loved one we’d always had a good relationship with. When that loved one dies, and we realize our mistake, such regret wells up, we feel compelled to warn everyone around us to stop letting busyness rob us of relationships that are far more important than the trivial things we’d pursued instead–or at least they seem so in theRead More →