In the Midst of Unanswered Prayer ...

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A beautiful post about how even if the midst of unanswered prayer, of heartbreak, of turmoil, God is still there:

"Hard Times?  How To Hear God's Song Louder Than Any Hard Times"

Even if He doesn't fix our problems or do what we thought He "should" do, He's still with us, walking with us through the pain.  

(And if you can't find Him or feel His presence anywhere else, remember that He's always in His Word, waiting to meet you there.)

Most Popular Posts of the Week:

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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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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Giggle Translate #11: Praying Mantises (A.K.A. Prayer Helicopters)

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Here is my new Giggle Translate.  I ran a post I wrote about hatching praying mantises through many different languages with Google Translate, and here is how it came out: Original paragraph: Several years back, I bought some praying mantis egg cases to put in my garden.    But we wanted to watch them hatch (and raise one in a tank on our counter), and so we kept the egg cases in the kitchen suspended from a stick over a bowl.    For weeks they did nothing.    They just sat there, like dried-up walnuts.    I was beginning to wonder if we had a couple of duds.
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Ah, yes, praise God for hell-bound vipers!

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In a recent Reddit Reformed post, a Calvinist celebrates the birth and dedication of another wretched, depraved, hell-bound viper-in-a-diaper wonderful little innocent baby ! Of course, I myself believe that babies are wonderful little innocent blessings from God, and so I celebrate the birth of all babies and congratulate parents on baby dedications. But I can... because I'm not a Calvinist. Calvinists, however, hmm?  I know they truly love their children and praise God for them, feeling like they are (I hope) blessings and sweet little bundles of joy.   But I wonder if Calvinist parents have ever read these quotes of Calvinists' own views and teachings about babies and young children.  (I've already shared many of these before, but a bunch are new.) Because if they did, then maybe they wouldn't be so quick to view them as sweet little bundles of joy, but more like evil little bundles of depravity.  Maybe they wouldn't be so quick to praise the Lord for that...
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Scripture-Based Prayers For The Hardest Times (updated)

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As some of you may know, a close relative of mine is in jail right now awaiting trial for ... well ... for something serious.  She is maintaining her innocence, while the rest of us think there's more to the story than what she's saying.  There will be a trial coming up sometime in 2021, and I will have to testify against her.  I'm really not looking forward to that.   Anyway, I know I can't fix her situation for her.  I can't make it all better.  All I can do is offer whatever support I can, even though I have to testify against her eventually.  And even if I think she's not being totally honest with the authorities right now, I know that, deep down, she is a Christian.  A Christian who, I believe, is running from the Holy Spirit's conviction right now. One of the ways I decided to support and encourage her is to keep sending her Scripture-based things.  Quotes.  Bible verses.  Bible studies.  Articles.  Etc.  ...
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Enjoying Some Priscilla Shirer Videos

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Since we are not going to our church anymore because of its recent slide into Calvinism, I am needing to find good, godly Christian speakers online to get my "church" from.  For now.  And my go-to preacher is, of course, Tony Evans.  But to mix it up a little, I have recently been watching his daughter speak, Priscilla Shirer.  And she's good.  Really good.  (I also love the movie she's in, War Room .  It really does make you want to take prayer more seriously.) Over the past couple days, I watched these three videos by Priscilla Shirer.  And I thought I'd share the links here, in case you are looking for a little practical encouragement too. Acting In Obedience The Armor   [I'll admit, though, that while I totally understand the need for and importance of prayer, I'm still really struggling with it.  After having so many prayers and expectations fail, so many times I've gotten my hopes up about something only to severely cra...
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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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When Forgiveness is Hard

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(This is a continuation of point #10 in "Getting through the 'broken' times." )  10.   Forgive.             Going through painful trials often gives us tunnel-vision.   All we see is how everyone else is treating us wrong and how life is being unfair.   And we make the pain worse by dwelling on all the ways we’ve been cheated in life.   We catalog our hurts, the ways people let us down, the ways they treated us poorly, the ways God let us down, etc.   And we grow bitter and more discouraged and more closed-off.                 Bitterness is a poison.   And it will slowly destroy our relationship with others, our faith, our emotional health, and our physical well-being.   Good never comes from carrying around giant chains of unforgiveness and bitterness.   It only weighs us down, making our futures as pathetic as...
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