We live in a world where there is no shortage of trouble. And that trouble often presents a great challenge to our faith.
Perhaps it’s a natural disaster. Then there is the almost unspeakable violence both near and far. Or perhaps it is your own private trauma. When trouble happens, it’s normal to ask questions: Why me?
In the face of unexpected tragedy, the challenge to faith is real. When trouble comes, here are three things to do:
The people you hang out with have a big impact on your character. Values, attitudes, beliefs, habits – they are all very contagious! You may not even notice subtle changes in your own soul until you have changed more than you wish.
But didn’t Jesus call His followers salt and light? How can you influence others for His Kingdom if you’re not around them? You must get out of the saltshaker if your saltiness is to flavor anything.
How can you deal with this seeming conflict? How can you influence others positively without being corrupted yourself?
If you spend your time and energy trying to do something you can’t do, you’ll only experience frustration, fatigue, and failure. How much better to understand where you can make a difference, and where your efforts are useless. Then you can spend your valuable time and energy in the right place.
Here are six things you might as well stop doing. All your time and effort will just be wasted:
The numbers concerning addiction are truly staggering. And the problem is huge in the Christian church as well. But numbers tell little of the personal devastation caused by addiction. And the most devastating cost of all is to the soul of the person held in bondage by an addiction.
Yes, addiction is powerful. But as powerful as addiction is, there is ONE who is more powerful. There is ONE who is the Bondage Breaker, Jesus Himself. He has already gone to hell and back for you, and He offers you a way out.
Sometimes it’s a bad hair day. And sometimes it’s a whole lot more than hair that’s going bad! Sometimes everything that can go wrong does go wrong, your stability feels threatened, and you’d just like to go away somewhere and forget everything.
When you’re having a really bad day, here are some suggestions on what to do. Choose one, or two, or three, and see if you don’t feel more able to get through the difficulty:
For many people the Christian life seems difficult. You try to knuckle down and push yourself to make it work. But that’s just it: it’s work!
Seeing the Christian life as work will always make it seem difficult. It may help keep you out of jail, but it certainly won’t be much fun.
Let me suggest a much more engaging way to look at things. Rather than work, consider the Christian life as part of a very great drama. Think of what you know of the Bible.
Small changes in direction may make a huge difference in your destination. You know that. But it’s easy to fall into a routine and end up some place you would rather not be.
So many areas in life follow this principle. Here are some things where very small actions may make a huge difference down the road:
Several studies indicate that on average married people have sex more often, enjoy more varied sex, and are more satisfied with their sex lives than single people. And those with a single sexual partner in the past year report the most happiness in general.
For any marriage to work, both husband and wife must be more focused on meeting each other’s needs than getting their own needs met. It takes a lot of forgiveness, flexibility, and unconditional love to make a marriage last.
Nowhere are these characteristics more important than in a couple’s sexual relationship. Here’s how healthy sexuality looks for a married couple when it’s working well:
The National Alliance on Mental Illness estimates that at least one in four adults suffers from a diagnosable mental illness during any given year. Sure, there’s controversy over whether the one-in-four number represents an over-diagnosis. But what is absolutely certain is the pain and loneliness many of those affected struggle with.
There are a number of things you can do on your own to maximize your mental health. You don’t have to accept emotional or mental problems as your destiny. Here are recommendations that will make a difference in managing your own mental health:
You expect certain things of your spouse. But sometimes you want more. You believe your spouse loves you, but it’s not enough. You crave something you’re not getting. You want adventure, intimacy, emotional connection, time, trust, help around the house, more money, children, support, more sex – something more.
The only way to keep “wanting more” from coming between you and your spouse is to address the problem head on. If you feel you want more than you are getting from your spouse, here are the steps you can take:
You know you “should” spend time alone with God. Perhaps you feel a little guilty for not having something spiritual to answer your friends with. But more than that, it all sounds boring and unimportant. You just can’t do “pious and spiritual.”
God works uniquely in each person’s life. So if you’re up for an experiment, here are some suggestions to try. See what fits with your personality.
One of the biggest fears many people have as they get older is the possibility of developing Alzheimer’s or some other dementia. Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death in this country. One in 3 seniors die with Alzheimer’s or some other dementia. Direct costs of Alzheimer’s disease in the United States will top $203 billion this year.
But these numbers don’t really touch on the personal cost of dementia. Many of both the patients and family members affected feel like Alzheimer’s steals what should be some of the most meaningful years of one’s life. Family members put careers on hold. Financial savings are wiped out. And the physical and emotional toll of caregiving becomes overwhelming.
Some Christians have been criticized for not caring enough about their health in the here-and-now. You know, being “so heavenly minded they are no earthly good.” It seems Christians on the whole do not have a very good track record for being healthy.
While not the deciding factor in your eternal salvation, doing all you can to maximize your health leads to increased effectiveness in what God has given you to do, allows you to hear God’s voice better, helps you experience God’s restoration now, and more.
The people you align yourself with will determine your future, good or bad.
It’s important who your friends are. You become increasingly like the people you hang out with. Your attitudes, behaviors, and values naturally move closer to those of the people around you. It’s possible to know much about your future by looking at your friends.
The rates of marriage may be going down in our society. But for most, you expect to grow up, find a man or woman to join your life with, create a family, and live happily ever after. Your mental life plan, conscious or unconscious, probably did not include being single.
At least for some, marriage will never happen. And then the truth is that marriage is temporary. Every marriage has an end. Your spouse dies, or your marriage ends in divorce, and you face being single again. Whether never married or newly single, the single life has special challenges.
Being single is not just a prelude to being married. Go ahead and enjoy life, and take God with you on the journey.
Seeing things through a child’s eyes sets so many things straight. Learning to walk, fascination over a butterfly, first day of school – every day is wonderful in some way.
The tiredness and busyness of life lead most of us to forget much of what we knew as children. Here are some things children know that we can learn again:
Make friends with yourself; then you will never have to be lonely!
Sometimes it really is that simple. We do need people in our lives. But being alone does not have to mean feeling lonely. When you feel lonely, taking some specific action can change your whole emotional state. Over time, those actions may create new emotional habits, and you will feel entirely different about the times when you are alone.
Here are some things you can do when you feel lonely:
I had given up on marriage. It just wasn’t for me. It’s not that I didn’t want to be married: I had hoped and prayed for years. By the time I was in my early forties I had come to terms with the fact that I would always be single.
Then God brought a wonderful man into my life. During my single years I learned a lot. It was that kind of growing up that has allowed me to be so happily married now.
We need to eat every day. So does your soul. Sometimes a mental fast-food snack will keep your soul’s hunger at bay for a time. But you regularly need to bring some real nourishment to the deeper parts of you. Neglect doing so for too long, and you will become irritable, short-sighted, frustrated, angry, and ineffective.
Here are several possible ways to give your soul some gourmet nourishment:
Marriage is risky! Expecting or demanding change from your spouse is likely to result in profound disappointment. Getting your spouse to change is very much like God’s work to change you and me.
You know how to pray.
If you’ve ever sent a text message, talked on the phone, or met a friend for lunch, you know how to pray. If you’ve ever composed an email or a FB post, if you’ve ever told a story, or spent a long enchanted evening looking into your sweetheart’s eyes, you know how to pray.
You know how to pray.
If you’ve ever sent a text message, talked on the phone, or met a friend for lunch, you know how to pray. If you’ve ever composed an email or a FB post, if you’ve ever told a story, or spent a long enchanted evening looking into your sweetheart’s eyes, you know how to pray.
You know how to pray.
If you’ve ever sent a text message, talked on the phone, or met a friend for lunch, you know how to pray. If you’ve ever composed an email or a FB post, if you’ve ever told a story, or spent a long enchanted evening looking into your sweetheart’s eyes, you know how to pray.
Prayer is not a performance; it’s a conversation. There are many ways to communicate. Think of all the ways you communicate every day, and put them in the context of communicating with God.
Two little girls were walking to school. It was a beautiful spring morning, and they took some time to enjoy the flowers and the fresh air.
Suddenly they realized that they had taken so long enjoying the flowers that they were going to be late for school. Soon the bell would ring, and they’d be marked tardy. Not wanting to get in trouble, the first little girl said to her friend, “Let’s kneel down right here and pray.”
“I am a spirit, I have a soul, and I live in a body.” Have you been in Christian gatherings where the preacher asked you to say that out loud, or something similar?
Some readers may issue with this position. But I believe this discussion really misses the point. God didn’t take a bit of this and a bit of that and weld it together with some cosmic superglue when He made you.
There’s something intimate and beautiful about new parents holding their newborn baby in their arms. But sadly, many couples do not have an opportunity to experience that joy, and do not have a baby to hold in their arms.
As a Reproductive Endocrinologist I’ve seen couples struggle with these issues, and have seen the stress it puts on their relationship. Helping couples experience that miracle is a privilege I enjoy. And my hope and prayer is that you can experience that miracle when you so desire.
If it wasn’t one thing it was another. The very professional woman broke down in tears, hoping for some help from me as her doctor.
I explained to Linda how inter-connected a women is in her body, mind, and soul. And we talked through these action steps that I’ll share with you. When faced with almost any problem, here’s what to do.
If you’re a guy, you probably would do just about anything to impress your lady love, or win her heart.
But do you know what she really wants?
And if you’re a woman, do you recognize what your heart really wants – and needs?
In the deep parts of a woman’s soul most of us share these common needs.
Even before Ponce de Leon spent his years searching Florida for the illusive fountain of youth, men and women have searched for ways to look and feel younger, and to keep from getting old. Most of us recognize that with maturity often comes wisdom, but we long for the freshness of youth.
Something in our soul understands that getting old, weak, and dependent is not our original destiny. Deep inside we sense that 70, 80, or even 90 years is not long enough.
Sandra and Tom plan to never enter a church again. They feel bruised and beaten emotionally and spiritually at the hand of a group of Christians, and feel their only hope of survival is to separate from the Christian church as they see it.
Unhealthy spirituality can be toxic – to your mental well-being, to your physical health, and to your relationship with God. Don’t let one of these dangerous spiritual viruses infect your life:
When I think of contraception, a number of images come to mind. Talking about contraception is often an emotionally charged issue. The debate really has nothing to do with birth control. The debate has to do with sex.
If you’ve read this far, you want to know how I deal with these issues, and what I tell patients. As a Christian, as a gynecologist, as a minister, what’s the RIGHT thing to do?
Part of you really wants to make a difference. You want your life to count for something. But how do you do that? In the middle of a busy life it can seem like most of what you do is fruitless.
So here are the two lessons that will guarantee you will have a positive impact on those who come after you:
You’re tired, you don’t feel well, and you want some help. You come to see me in my office, hoping I will have an answer.
How I wish I could fulfill your hopes! I wish I could fix you. That would make your life, and mine, so much easier. Most of the time it’s a matter of you and me figuring things out together. Here are a few things I’d like to tell you:
I’m a woman, and I’m talking to men about men. Sure, that’s a little dangerous, but here’s my perspective.
Men have challenges to face that our modern society perhaps makes even harder. Today’s jobs and today’s families often give men the message that they are unnecessary. And perhaps the church can be especially faulted for making a goal out of becoming a “Mr Nice Guy!”
But I believe that God created men the way they are on purpose.
Sometimes we all wonder if we’re doing this thing called Christianity right. Even if you are certain of Jesus as your Savior, what kind of difference should that be making in your life now? Do you have to be “super-Christian” to be successful? How do you know?
Checklists can be a little dangerous. But a spiritual checkup every now and then is helpful.
God can do amazing things. He just might step in and part the Red Sea for you. I’ve seen God do it. And it can be exhilarating! But what if it doesn’t? What if you wait – and wait, and wait?
It may well have taken a long time to get where you are now. And it may well take time to make things different.
We just passed Father’s Day. Many of you celebrated the memory or presence of a father who passed on a godly heritage, important values, and a readiness to take life on. Others of you were not celebrating: your earthly father was either absent, uninvolved, or abusive. One thing we all agree on – a father makes a difference!
I’ve never especially liked going to bed. There’s so much to do.
We all know that our human bodies need sleep and rest. But that’s not all. Your mind, emotions, ability to handle stress, and how you relate to your children, spouse, God, and others are all affected.
Or to put it more academically correctly, your view of God as either benevolent or vindictive is correlated with your risk of psychiatric symptoms. At least that’s what recent research published in the Journal of Religion and Health seems to indicate.
For a person of faith, examining religion, spirituality, or Christianity from a scientific viewpoint may at first seem a like denial of that faith. But if our faith cannot stand up to scrutiny perhaps it’s not faith in the right thing!
I don’t presume to understand all the ways God works in your male hearts.
But I do know some of the things women feel when men use spirituality to crush them, ignore them, control them, or put them down. Your wife is a treasure from God. If you want your own prayers to be answered, treat her with the same loving care with which Christ loved – and loves – the church.
A few do’s and don’ts to put things in perspective:
A young wife asked me, “How can I respect and love my husband while making God first? Isn’t my husband supposed to be Number 1 to me? But then does that mean I’m not honoring God? I’m confused.”
God never intended this to be confusing. He intended the Christian life to bring husband and wife closer together, not drive them apart. A few do’s and don’ts that may help:
We want to feel important in some way. We want to know we have made a difference, that our existence has been more than an accident. We try to find our worth in so many ways that are dependent on other people.
The only accurate way to judge your own – or anyone else’s – worth is to consider how valuable your Creator judges you to be. And to Him, you are PRICELESS!
It’s not the years in your life that count: it’s the life in your years that’s important.
Look for the interruptions: they are your job security!
If you work with people in any capacity, expect to be interrupted. The only people who are not interrupted are hermits and prison inmates. You and I should be thankful for interruptions.
But think of these situations where interruptions are the whole reason your “job” exists:
Losing a loved one in death is one of life’s most difficult experiences. It’s something each one of us either already has or someday will go through. Knowing it will happen does not make it any less painful.
The journey of grief is just that – a journey.
With all the talk about priorities, how do you know what yours truly are? It’s good to decide what you want your priorities to be. But the only way you know your true priorities is when they are tested.
My priorities have been tested this week. My husband became ill while I was out of town, and was hospitalized.
We’re not used to waiting. And we can get rather irritated when we have to do so.
God’s long term view is a whole order of magnitude larger than ours. Think of these Biblical examples of how long God’s friends sometimes had to wait for Him to fulfill what He had promised:
For many people, lessening the risk of disease or living longer is a rather boring, un-spectacular motivation for maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Understanding more of the “other” benefits of healthy living can help us find more of the motivation necessary to actually make those healthy lifestyle choices. Here are some of those benefits.
