Stages of Life on Control

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The Control Drug

Author

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 22:1–14, Exodus 14:10–31, Job 1:20–22; 38–42, Luke 1:26–38 , 2 Corinthians 12:7–10, Psalm 131:1–2

Kate Bowler is a gifted scholar and writer who, as a young wife and mom, was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer—kept going six months at a time thanks to immunotherapy. She writes honestly about how ...

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Grasping at Guarantees

Author

Bobby Jamieson

Keywords

To desire control is to grasp at guarantees. You want to be certain that the dollar you feed in will send a snack through the slot. You want a sure return on investment, a guaranteed payout. But this ...

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Author

Charles R. Swindoll

Keywords

When you accept the fact that sometimes seasons are dry and times are hard and that God is in control of both, you will discover a sense of divine refuge, because the hope then is in God and not in yo...

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Dear Lord, we come before You today as

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:27-28, Psalm 104:24-25, Romans 8:14-16, 1 John 3:1-3, Genesis 1:1-31, Hebrews 11:3, John 1:1-3

Dear Lord, we come before You today as Your children. We praise You as the God of all creation and the giver of life. You have made us, saved us, and called us to be Your people and to serve in Your K...

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Getting Your Deepest Desire Isn’t Always a Good Thing

Author

Timothy Keller

Keywords

My wife and I once knew a single woman, Anna, who wanted desperately to have children. She eventually married, and contrary to the expectations of her doctors, was able to bear two healthy children de...

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Almighty God, we bow before You, humbly

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 22:34-40, Mark 12:28-34, Luke 10:25-28, Leviticus 19:18, Deuteronomy 6:4-5

Almighty God, we bow before You, humbly able to admit how small, fragile, and dependent we are. Unfortunately, for many of us, it takes a disaster to convince us that we are not in control. Over the p...

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Waiting: Leaning into the Pain

Author

Ashley Hales

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 16:2–4, Isaiah 40:31, Lamentations 3:25–26, Matthew 4:2–4, Romans 8:24–25, Psalm 130:5–6

With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...

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Refining Metals in Fire

Author

Eunice McGarrahan

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 12:49, Malachi 3:2, Zechariah 13:9, Isaiah 48:10, Proverbs 17:3, Psalm 66:10-12, 1 Peter 1:7

Refiner’s fires are used on precious metals, not for mundane elements. The refiner must hold the metal in the hottest part of the fire in order to burn off all the impurities, thus retrieving a pure...

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The Banshees of Inisherin Movie Review

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 4:null

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or. what's a heaven for? " Robert Browning A part of our desire at The Pastor’s Workshop is to help pastors connect the stories in ...

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Third Third Ministry and the Intergenerational Opportunity

Author

Mark Roberts

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 148:11-12

Last week I spoke to a retreat of pastors and other church leaders who are working on innovative ways to help their congregants understand and live their vocation in the world. The retreat was part of...

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The Root of Anxiety

Author

J. P. Moreland

Keywords

What causes anxiety? I offer this list so you can engage in an exercise… genetic predispositions parenting (overprotective, overcontrollers, inconsistent responders) early childhood experiences tha...

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Forgetting Death

Author

Keywords

Death

According to Greek mythology, people once knew in advance their exact day of death. Everyone on earth lived with a deep sense of melancholy, for mortality hung like a sword suspended above them. All t...

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It is Well

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:4, Psalm 147:null, Psalm 34:18, Revelation 21:1-8, 2 Corinthians 1:3-12, Romans 8:18-28, John 11:null, 2 Thessalonians 3:16, John 14:27, 1 Peter 5:7, Daniel 6:, Psalm 46:, Psalm 23:, Job 1:, Job 2:, 2 Samuel 11:, 2 Samuel 12:

If you ever travel to Jerusalem and are looking for sites to see, beyond all the ‘must-see’ sites related to Ancient Israel, the Temple Mount, and the sites associated with Jesus, you might venture to...

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“Dear Paco,”

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Colossians 3:13, Matthew 6:14-15, Ephesians 4:31-32, Romans 5:10, Colossians 1:20, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19

Ernest Hemingway grasped some of the difficulty that characterizes relationships between fathers and sons in his short story, The Capital of the World . The story revolves around a father and his t...

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A Need to Heal the Past

Author

Ronald Rohlheiser

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 147:3, Jeremiah 30:17, Matthew 11:28-30, James 5:16, Psalm 34:18, Psalm 51:10, Jeremiah 33:6

One of the challenges, at least in the western church, is an inability to deal with our wounds in a healthy way. Our training as Christians has been focused on Bible studies, small groups, and Sunday ...

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Fostering Shame in a Little Girl

Author

Sandra D. Wilson

Keywords

I was standing in line in a crowded public rest room engaged in one of my favorite hobbies, people watching, when I observed a brief interaction between a mother and daughter. Mother looked harried an...

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Lord Jesus—the same yesterday, today

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

Matthew 5:9, Ephesians 4:32, James 5:15-16, John 14:27, Psalm 34:18

Lord Jesus—the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, and the author of change, who’s constantly doing “a new thing,” which makes us sit up and take notice. We admit, we’d be more comfortable with a pred...

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Adolescence and the Pings, Not Pong

Author

Craig Detweiler

Keywords

Adolescents have been offered a license to post without any accompanying ethical framework. Is it fair to blame teens for misusing tools that didn’t exist in our childhood? If I had been given a phone...

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The Myth of a Life We Don’t Have to Heal From

Author

Danielle Mellema

Keywords

Scripture

Psalm 147:3, Psalm 71:20

Over the past few years, I’ve often heard parenting and child development experts offer the charge: “Give your kids a childhood they don’t have to heal from.” I’ve heard its echoes even in my own comm...

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Author

James Hollis

Keywords

Aging

The world is more magical, less predictable, more autonomous, less controllable, more varied, less simple, more infinite, less knowable, more wonderfully troubling than we could have imagined being ab...

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Author

James I. Packer

Keywords

Fathers

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that promp...

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Understanding God as Father

Author

James I. Packer

Keywords

Scripture

John 1:12-13, Romans 8:14-16, Galatians 4:4-7, 1 John 3:1, 2 Corinthians 6:18, Isaiah 64:8

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts a...

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Eric and Kate

Author

Andy Crouch

Keywords

Loss

Before I really talk with Eric and Kate for the first time, I can already make a rough guess of their status and occupations. Eric is athletic, handsome, in a suit with an open collar; Kate is dressed...

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Author

Paul David Tripp

Keywords

If rules and regulations had the power to change the heart and life of your child, rescuing your child from himself and giving him a heart of submission and faith, Jesus would have never needed to com...

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Author

Benjamin Franklin

Keywords

Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their f...

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Author

Martha Whitmore Hickman

Keywords

Loss

We can be a little more resistant to calls of duty, though responsibilities, too, can help us keep going. But if we tend to be superconscientious, we can relax a little…When we do go into social group...

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Author

Gordon T. Smith

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 14:10-22 , Joshua 1:1-9, Matthew 4:18-20, Acts 9:1-19, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Psalm 121:1-3

Transition is one of the givens in our lives, and we only live well, we only manage our lives well, when we manage these transitions well. Our world changes; the circumstances of our lives change. The...

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A Son That Ruled All of Greece

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

At one point in his career, Themistocles was overheard saying that his young son ruled all of Greece. When his talking companion asked him to explain, he said, “Athens holds sway over all Greece; I do...

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Author

Richard Plass and James Cofield

Keywords

The primary factor that determines the pattern a child will land on is trust. Trust is born and nurtured in the infant through the consistent and reliable care of the primary caregivers. Trust is the ...

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Author

Richard Brislin and Tomoko Yoshida

Keywords

Culture consists of concepts, values, and assumptions about life that guide behavior and are widely shared by people. . . . [These] are transmitted generation to generation, rarely with explicit instr...

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