Good morning. Grace and peace to you. After traveling from North to South and back again over the past couple of weeks, I’m glad to be at home with nowhere to go for the next few weeks. It’s time to start a new book!
I have a $100 gift card for Westminster Books to give away this week. I will choose someone randomly from among new and existing subscribers to my newsletters.
Sales & Deals
If all goes according to schedule, you should find some excellent Kindle deals today on books like Mark Vroegop’s Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Christopher Ash’s The Heart of Anger, Ed Welch’s Side by Side, and more.
Recommended Reading
Nathanael. This is a heartbreaking article by Wanjiru Maina that aptly shows how poor theology makes tragic situations all the worse. “On a quiet Friday in 2016, Wanjiku’s world was shattered when her young son, Nathanael, suddenly passed away despite her desperate ‘decrees and declarations’ for a resurrection. In the aftermath of her loss, she was met with a theology that blamed her for ‘opening a door to Satan,’ forcing her to confront a terrifying question: Is God so weak that He can be outmaneuvered by human error?”
How to Help the Wife Who Thinks Her Husband Isn’t a Good Spiritual Leader. Lauren Washer offers help for a common situation. “We often feel ill-equipped to help a woman with marital struggles, but this one may be particularly intimidating. Scripture doesn’t provide detailed instructions about spiritual leadership for husbands. In fact, the Bible doesn’t even use the term ‘spiritual leadership.’ And even if we think we’ve seen another man lead well, his gifts and personality are different from her husband’s. Each marriage is unique, so the help we offer must be nuanced.”
Weary Mom, Let Christ’s Church Nurture You. The postpartum season can feel deeply disorienting, especially your first time through, but you aren’t as unseen or overlooked as you might feel. In his humanity, Christ came to walk where you walk and suffer as you do, and he understands the loneliness and exhaustion you feel. And in his deity, Christ meets you there with the comfort and care of a perfect Parent. (Sponsored)
This Generation Averages 9 Hours of Daily Screen Time — and It’s Affecting More Than Mental Health. Writing for Relevant, Taylor Berry sounds an important warning. “Gen Z has officially become Generation Scroll. According to recent screen time data, the average Gen Z user now spends roughly nine hours a day on screens, outpacing millennials, Gen X and boomers by a wide margin. Another report found that nearly one in four Americans ages 18 to 29 say they spend nine to 12 hours a day looking at screens.”
Attack of the She Bears! We have all wondered at one time or another about that story from the life of Elisha. Steven Wedgeworth provides an interesting take on the matter in this article. “What in the world? This is a wild story. What’s also wild is that after dropping these two verses, the chapter goes right back to a mundane detail, that Elisha went on to Mt. Carmel and then to Samaria. If you’re like me, you’re still trying to process what just happened. And then we’re at the end of chapter. Here endeth the first lesson.”
Advice for College Graduates. Matthew Hall has been involved in higher education for a long time and, from that vantage point, he offers some valuable counsel to new grads. “But it’s just as busy for the graduates themselves. And for all the full schedules, not everyone who walks across a stage and receives a diploma is entirely settled. The season can bring about a lot of anxiety. Graduates might wonder if they’re the only ones in their class who haven’t figured out what comes next. While others are starting jobs, heading off to graduate school, or embarking on what appear to be clearly defined new paths, there are far more graduates than we might imagine who are quietly asking themselves the same question: What am I supposed to do now?“
Righteousness Like the Mountains. Justin Huffman: “God’s righteousness is so complete, so powerful, so glorious that Moses had to be hidden in the cleft of the rock to survive his encounter with it. Similarly, every human who must face the perfect standard and thorough holiness of God must be covered in the righteousness of Jesus Christ in order to withstand the righteous scrutiny of the Almighty.”
The Tests of Life
This is a moving quote from Maltbie Davenport Babcock, whose writings have often been a blessing to me.
The tests of life are to make, not break us. Trouble may demolish a man’s business but build up his character. The blow at the outward man may be the greatest blessing to the inner man. If God, then, puts or permits anything hard in our lives, be sure that the real peril, the real trouble, is what we shall lose if we flinch or rebel.
Pilgrim Prayers
Every now and again, I like to introduce you to one of my books. Today it’s Pilgrim Prayers. I had been reading a lot of writing from the 19th century when I began to notice that many writers of that era wrote their prayers as poems. They then shared these poems with others, so they could pray them as well. I began to collect these poems and eventually decided others might benefit from them as well. I wrote a brief devotional for each and compiled them in this volume. If you would like some assistance in knowing what or how to pray, or if you’d like to freshen up your prayers, Pilgrim Prayers may be just the thing. (Amazon)
Flashback
Keys To Knowing God’s Will for Your Life. Generally speaking, where Scripture, providence, and desire converge you can move forward confident that you are doing God’s will. If there are multiple options that exist at that point of convergence, you can confidently choose any of them and trust that God will bless you.
Young people are trying to live out a worldview that does not match their true nature, and it is tearing them apart with its pain and heartache.
—Nancy Pearcey
