When You're Discouraged By The Hard Days

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For an encouraging reminder that we don't always know why things happen or how they will work out, but we can trust that God is always working all things for good:  
The White Horse Maxim by Ann Voskamp.

Most Popular Posts of the Week:

I So Needed This Today - "Strength In Your Struggles"

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I desperately needed this sermon today: Tony Evans Speaks on Strength in Your Struggles .  Such a great one!  [Update 8/11/2026: That video has been removed, so here are some other options from Dr. Evans' YouTube channel .] Last week sometime, I made a very deliberate effort to decide to not believe that everything goes wrong all the time, to have hope that things were going to be okay and that I'd make it through the crushing trials .  Generally, I wake up with a feeling of anxiety (and I have for over 3 years now), but that morning I had decided "No more!  I can't keep living like this.  I'm just going to trust that God's got it in His hands and that it's going to be okay.  I am just too tired to be anxious anymore."  And I felt rather relaxed for the day, in a way I hadn't in a long time.  And it felt good! And then ... that very night ... the night I felt like I had finally turned a new leaf ... one of my young sons comes to me sobbin...
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What Kind Of Christian Are You? 12-ish Different Kinds of "Christian"

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I find it very disheartening to read people’s opinions of Christians nowadays.   Society is coming down on them really hard, with such hateful force.   It almost makes me wonder what kind of Christian they are talking about.   While they might not differentiate one Christian from another, I think there are various different kinds of Christians (and “Christians”).   And just for fun, I want to make a list of as many different kinds I can think of.   And I am putting it on this blog because it’s important for the world to understand what a genuine Christian is and isn’t.   So here goes, in no particular order   (And these are not exclusive of each other.   There can be some overlap.   Nor is this an exhaustive or “official” list.) …
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How to Tell if a Church, Pastor, or Website is Calvinist (simplified version)

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(For the extended version of this post, which I recommend, click here .  It is loaded with lots more information.  This simplified one is just the highlights.  And feel free to copy this and share it with others, to help them learn to identify Calvinism when they see it.  Just make sure to share the link to this post so that they can find the original one if they want it.  Thank you.   New :  For the super-short version,   click here .   And FYI:  I found a couple times when the Calvinist author of an article I linked to changed the article after I linked to it.  So if an article doesn't seem to match what I said about it, it may be because they altered it. ) We just left our church of almost 20 years because of the dogmatic Calvinist pastor who recently came on board.  ( Read my "Letter to Our Elders Regarding Calvinism Growing in Our Church" here.)   And I was thinking about what precautions I might take to...
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Is God Only Concerned about His Glory and Being Famous?

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In a couple posts I wrote ( "Are We Only Here For God's Glory?  What About God's Love?" and "Calvinists, Altar Calls, and Evangelism" ), I looked at my Calvi-pastor's ( ex -pastor) reasons for evangelism. He (and maybe Calvinists in general) believes that God's main goal (and basically only goal) is to be famous and to get as much glory as He can for Himself. T his pastor reminds us often about God's glory being His biggest concern.  And he wrote an article about "making God famous" being the main goal of evangelism, instead of something more like "sharing God's love and forgiveness with people, helping them find healing and hope in Jesus and leading them into a personal relationship with Him."  (Yes, he does believe in calling people to repent, but he doesn't do altar calls or ask people if they want to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, if they want to have a personal relationship with Jesus.  Challenging people ...
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Updated: Alana L. 5N (conflations: foreknow vs foreplan)

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[I redid Point #5 and #6 in the Alana L. series on my other blog (and re-lettered the posts).  But instead of going back and changing the already-posted points on this blog, I'll just add the posts in their own little "series."]  Point #5 still: N:  "Sovereign, sovereign, sovereign, sovereign."     Foreknow vs Foreplan "Oh," the Calvinist replies, "but God needed Assyria (or anybody, for that matter) to be/do evil for His plans, and so He foreplanned they would be/do evil.  They had no ability to do anything else or to choose to be good because God planned to use their evilness.  And so it had to be that way."   My reply to them: "No, I think God foreplanned to  use  Assyria's self-chosen evilness to discipline Israel, but He did not foreplan them to be/do evil.  Assyria had a choice in who they were and what they did.   And God foreknew they would be/chose evil, and so He found a way to work their evil into His plans...
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"Ohio Sheriff Offers to Help Celebrities Leave The U.S. If Trump Wins, On One Condition ..."

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I love this! Ohio Sheriff Offers to Help Celebrities Leave the U.S. If Trump Wins - On One Condition: "You Can't Come Back"  (from cnsnews, but I took the link down because it doesn't lead to the article anymore) Thank you, Sheriff Rick Jones, for saying what a lot of us have wanted to say to those celebrities who threaten to leave the U.S. if Trump wins (and who threatened last election).   I applaud you, and I add my message to those celebrities (and anyone else) who think they have the right to demand that everything be their way or who threaten to move from the country if they don't get their way:  "Good ... leave!  We don't want your snotty, cry-baby whining here anyway!  We don't want your arrogant attitudes where you think you're better than all of us lowly, common folk.  We don't want you preaching to us about how we should think, how we should vote, what our values should be, etc., especially when you contribute to some of the most wr...
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UGW #2: Cause vs. Allow

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Understanding God's Will #2: Well, what about verses like Proverbs 16:4 : “The Lord works out everything for his own end ... ”   Doesn’t this mean that He causes everything that happens for His own reasons? I don’t think that’s what it means.   It doesn’t say He causes everything that happens for His own reasons; it says He works them out for His own ends.   (I’ll break this down further in later posts.)   God has an end goal, and He knows how to take whatever we do and work it together to reach that end.   But this doesn’t necessarily mean that He causes us to do what we do for His own reasons (because if He did then He would be responsible for our sins, not us) or that He causes the tragedies that we face for a reason. Now keep in mind as you read this series that I am not challenging the whole “Everything happens for a reason” idea for those who face trials in the quiet, optimistic assurance that there is some deep, unknown reason for their trial o...
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Isn't that how life goes sometimes!

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Three weeks ago, I found a hummingbird live-cam online - https://www.bellahummingbird.com/ .  The same day I found it, the hummingbird mama - Bella - laid her first egg of the season.  And then a second.   And I thought, "How cool!  I get to see these babies from the very start."   Eager to see the babies hatch, I checked on the live-cam every couple days.  And then, just a few days ago, the first baby hatched, followed shortly by the second. Two tiny new baby hummingbirds.  I called my boys over to show them off.   I guess this camera has been running since 2013.  It's been going for 6 years, but this is the first time I noticed it.  And I was excited about checking on the baby birds every day, watching them grow. What an honor! And then yesterday ... three weeks after I started watching the hummingbird live-cam that I missed for the last 6 years ... the mama bird was possibly killed, they suspect by a praying mantis (???),...
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Accident? Or not?

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I had one of those moments this afternoon.  The kind that make you go, "Hmm?" I went to Walmart with my kids to buy something for my son's birthday.  I ended up parking next to a minivan that was pulled back a little farther into the lane than it should be, which I knew would make it a bit harder to see around when I backed up.  I honestly thought, Maybe I should park one spot over so it's easier to see when I back out?   But I figured I'd be fine.  I'd just be extra careful. Yeah, you know where this is going! Well, as I was backing out of the spot, I glanced in my rearview mirror and in my reverse-camera screen to make sure no one was right behind me.  Then I checked to the right and carefully to the left to make sure no cars or pedestrians were coming. "Hey kids, does anyone see a car or pers ..." Crunch! As I was easing out of the spot, with my eyes carefully on any pedestrians or cars that might be approaching, I felt and heard th...
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