My wife and I are joining my extended family this week for a cruise to celebrate my dad’s upcoming 90th birthday. It’s a special treat for Lisa and me to have all our kids and daughter-in-law together, within walking distance. Most of you reading this post have your kids with you every day, and it’s […]
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Jordan looked shell-shocked. I knew him to be a gregarious man with a great sense of humor, accomplished, confident, almost intimidating (but only because of my insecurities, not because of his arrogance or manipulation). Yet he sat next to me, swirling in a mental and emotional fog. “I don’t want to teach the Sunday School […]
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Are Jesus’ words worth trying out? Seriously: do you think he has sufficiently proven himself to you to the point where you owe it to him to believe he knows what he’s talking about? If so, let me suggest a thirty-day marriage experiment rooted in Jesus’ new commandment, given in John 15:12: “This is my […]
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After having escaped cruel and harsh punishment, pregnant without any support from the father of her child, Hagar felt helpless and alone. She didn’t have a single earthly friend. Grown up enslaved, she had been owned, ordered about, abused and forced to have sex with a man she didn’t love in order to bear a […]
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When Your Marriage is Going in the Wrong Direction, Doing Nothing is Usually Your Worst Choice [Note: this week’s blog post is an adaptation from my newly released book Loving Him Well: Practical Advice for Influencing Your Husband, which is a rewritten version of Sacred Influence. For this reason, it primarily addresses women and wives, […]
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Legend has it that in a land far away, many centuries ago, there lived a husband who welcomed his wife’s rebukes. When she challenged him on some weakness in his character, he listened patiently and humbly, thanked her for her loving concern, made her remarks a matter of prayer, and changed his behavior accordingly. Eventually, […]
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Lisa and I are about to embark on a Win Shape Sailboat Cruise where I’ll be speaking once every evening, and Lisa will be planning the play during the day. We’ll be out of the country, and I may not have the ability to interact with comments until we get back, but the thought of […]
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When a family member—a spouse or a child—misbehaves or breaks your heart, the most natural reaction is to ask, “What did I do wrong?” Wrong question entirely. A therapist friend of mine, who has worked with thousands of couples in heartbreaking situations, always asks such people, “When God created the perfect world for Adam […]
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Dallas Willard was once asked, “Why are Christians so mean?” His answer was up to the task. He said that Christians are mean in proportion to when they value being “right” over being “like Christ.” It’s not enough to simply believe correct doctrine; as God’s chosen people, we are asked to behave a certain […]
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Robert has an admittedly sordid history with pornography. He has been in recovery for years, has set up appropriate accountability and has gone out of his way to rebuild his marriage. He has (in his words) “devoured” my book Cherish and has sought to apply every principle in every chapter. He knows he can never […]
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