What We Were Created For

There are three desires that I have found essential to a woman’s heart, which are not entirely different from a man’s and yet they remain distinctly feminine. Not every woman wants a battle to fight, but every woman yearns to be fought for. Listen to the longing of a woman’s heart: She wants to be more than noticed — she wants to be wanted. She wants to be pursued. Every woman also wants an adventure to share. “I want to be Isabo in Ladyhawk,;…

The Lord heard Sarah’s skeptical laughter a year earlier when He promised her husband Abraham that they would have a child. Believing such a thing must have seemed to her like too much of a stretch. But then, this elderly woman’s uncertainty was turned into joy with the miraculous birth of her son. The baby was given the name Isaac, just as God had instructed Abraham in Genesis 17:19. Isaac’s name means “one who laughs.” Sarah’s earlier…

By the grace of God, we cannot quite pull it off. In the quiet moments of the day we sense a nagging within, a discontentment, a hunger for something else. But because we have not solved the riddle of our existence, we assume that something is wrong—not with life, but with us. Everyone else seems to be getting on with things. What's wrong with me? We feel guilty about our chronic disappointment. Why can't I just learn to be happier in my job, in my marriage,…

A mail carrier became concerned after seeing one of her customers’ mail pile up. The postal worker knew the elderly woman lived alone and usually picked up her mail every day. Making a wise choice, the worker mentioned her concern to one of the woman’s neighbors. This neighbor alerted yet another neighbor, who had a spare key to the woman’s home. Together they entered their friend’s home and found her lying on the floor. She had fallen four days…

Scientists now believe that the Earth may have had all the elements needed for life within it all along, contrary to prior theories that these elements came from meteorites. For many years, scientists have predicted that many of the elements that are crucial ingredients for life, like sulfur and nitrogen, first came to Earth when asteroid-type objects carrying them crashed into our planet’s surface. I have a different theory. God created the heavens and the earth with…

The person we know as Saint Nicholas (Saint Nick) was born around ad 270 to a wealthy Grecian family. Tragically, his parents died when he was a boy, and he lived with his uncle who loved him and taught him to follow God. When Nicholas was a young man, legend says that he heard of three sisters who didn’t have a dowry for marriage and would soon be destitute. Wanting to follow Jesus’ teaching about giving to those in need, he took his inheritance and gave each…

If you want to improve your life, improve your choices. If you want to improve your choices, improve your emotional health. If you want to improve your emotional health, improve the stories you tell yourself. If you want to improve the stories you tell yourself, learn to pay close attention to your thoughts. Ask, 'Why am I having this thought?' It doesn't matter whether you win or not if the game you're playing is the wrong game. Amassing power in your…

God makes Himself known to everyone but lets us decide whether to pursue a relationship with Him. Unfortunately, those who don’t choose God ultimately end up feeling restless and empty. And the reason is because He has “set eternity in [our] heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). By God’s design, true satisfaction is found only in a relationship with Him. Without the Lord, people continuously seek new ways to temporarily fill their hearts. And that quest often…

Year after year, generation after generation, Rosh Hashanah is celebrated by countercultural groups of people who resist the thundering, punitive voice of the pharaoh who tries to reduce their identity to enslaved producers: “More bricks! More bricks!” Instead, it commemorates our existence as human miracles, not human resources. Rosh Hashanah says that we are already built to be loved by God and remain safe in his presence. Instead of asking us to please God …