Identity Security

My friend’s eyes revealed what I was feeling—fear! We two teens had behaved poorly and were now cowering before the camp director. The man, who knew our dads well, shared lovingly but pointedly that our fathers would be greatly disappointed. We wanted to crawl under the table—feeling the weight of personal responsibility for our offense. God gave Zephaniah a message for the people of Judah that contained potent words about personal responsibility for sin …

At the age of 22, I (Colleen) sat across from the man who would later become my husband, who noted that after observing me at work for a number of months he had some observations that he wanted to share. He wondered what had hurt me so bad that I was willing to go out of my way for others but not trust anyone to be intimately involved in my own life. He went on to share that he believed that each of us has a glass ball inside of us that contains our deepest secrets, needs,,…

A man owned more than $400 million in bitcoin, but he couldn’t access a cent of it. He lost the password for the device storing his funds, and disaster loomed: after ten password attempts, the device would self-destruct. A fortune lost forever. For a decade, the man had agonized, desperately trying to recall the password to his life-altering investment. He tried eight passwords and failed eight times. In 2021, he lamented that he had just two more chances before it…

I am here to tell you that you can get your heart back. But I need to warn you—if you want your heart back, if you want the wound healed and your strength restored and to find your true name, you’re going to have to fight for it. Notice your reaction to my words. Does not something in you stir a little, a yearning to live? And doesn’t another voice rush in, urging caution, maybe wanting to dismiss me altogether? He’s being melodramatic. What.…

Genesis 18:1-33 tells us about unexpected visitors to Abraham’s tent: Three men appeared out of nowhere, declaring that Sarah would give birth to a son. This announcement—which was surprising enough since it came from strangers—was even more unusual because of Sarah’s advanced age. Before long, however, Abraham and Sarah rejoiced when God kept His promise and gave them Isaac. A few chapters later, though, God told Abraham, “Take now your son,…

Spiritual discernment is the ability to see things from the Lord’s viewpoint. That means being able not only to separate truth from error but also to grasp the finer distinction between what is good and what is best. But how can we acquire such a skill? In his classic work My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers gives us the answer. He writes, “Put everything in your life afloat upon God, going out to sea on the great swelling tide of His purpose, and your…

In 1859, Joshua Abraham Norton declared himself Emperor of the United States. Norton had made—and lost—his fortune in San Francisco shipping, but he wanted a new identity: America’s first emperor. When the San Francisco Evening Bulletin printed “Emperor” Norton’s announcement, most readers laughed. Norton made pronouncements aimed at correcting society’s ills, printed his own currency, and even wrote letters to Queen Victoria asking…

For many around the world, life is getting lonelier. The number of Americans who have no friends has quadrupled since 1990. Certain European countries have up to 20 percent of their population feeling lonely, while in Japan, some elderly folks have resorted to crime so they can have the companionship of inmates in jail. Entrepreneurs have come up with a “solution” to this loneliness epidemic—rent-a-friend. Hired by the hour, these people will meet you in a caf;…

James Cameron, director of the movie Titanic, describes the Titanic as a ‘metaphor’ of life: ‘We are all living on… Titanic.’ When the Titanic set sail in 1912, it was declared to be ‘unsinkable’ because it was constructed using a new technology. The ship’s hull was divided into sixteen watertight compartments. Up to four of these compartments could be damaged or even flooded, and still the ship would float. Tragically, the…