Our small group always ended with prayer but our leader felt we needed to go deeper so she suggested that each person pray a sentence prayer, praising God for one attribute. Later one woman described how her heart pounded when she heard these directions. She avoided praying in public, in fact she had never prayed a public prayer…

To experience the full impact of commitment to doing life in community with a small group of Christians requires an equal commitment to vulnerability and a willingness to seek and follow counsel. Our Today’s Treasure verse reminds us of the value of counsel, but such counsel is useless if pride stops us from submitting to the wisdom of others…

In our Today’s Treasure verse we see a practical application of the power of Christian community. In response to the teaching of the Word, early Christians committed to doing life together. They live out Jesus in their daily lives and they did this by depending on one another…

David wrote Psalm 133, a song sung by the Israelites when they were on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. David knew the agony of division and conflict in relationships. From his father-in-law, Saul, who tried to murder him, to his son…

When God said it was not good for Adam to be alone, He wasn’t just talking about the beauty of marriage between a man and woman. In those few words, God states that along with our relationship to Him, He created us to need connections…

Aloneness created a need in Adam for another person. So God created Eve. Note that Adam’s loneliness was not an “oops moment” for God. Creating Eve was not an afterthought. God planned the creation of community from the beginning. Loneliness sounds negative, but loneliness showcases our need for one another.

How was your week? What does next week look like? Are people pressing in on you to meet their needs? Did your boss task you with a project that should have been completed yesterday? Do you have sick children or an unhappy husband...

Jesus models for us how to depend on God the way a child depends on his or her father. We see Him rising early to pray before choosing His disciples. After a full day of pouring out in ministry, He slips off by Himself to a desolate place and prays all night, energized by time with His Father to lead His disciples...

A friend’s daughter told her she no longer believed in God. Her precious daughter wanted out of her marriage, saying her husband refused to love her the way she wanted to be loved. How could my friend survive such agony...

About a year after our son Mark’s death I continued to wrestle with how to reconcile God’s love with His sovereignty. Though the words on the pages of the Bible often looked like black marks on a white page, I knew there was no other

The first chapter of Mark in the Bible describes an incredible pouring out of emotional, physical and spiritual energy from the life of Jesus. He chose His disciples, taught in the Synagogue, healed Simon Peter’s...

Shortly after the death of our son, our five-year-old niece asked her mother why she should pray, because everyone she prayed for died. Wondering the same thing, but wanting to give her little girl some kind of response...

Susan’s frantic phone call to my husband Chuck terrified us. She didn’t know what to do for her husband, John, who gasped for air in the throes of a heart attack. Chuck quickly called her family members and then we rushed to Susan’s home...

How does the love of Jesus drive your mission statement? The board and team that run MARKINC Ministries, a non-profit that we started after the death of our son, Mark, struggled to carefully identify our mission. We agreed that we exist to offer help and hope to hurting people. We then described the ways we will fulfill that mission....

When our sons asked me what songs I wanted sung at Mark’s memorial service, I didn’t hesitate to ask for O, the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus.  Though we wanted to rejoice in our faith, I wanted a way to express the anguish and desperate need for Jesus in the coming days. Remember the puddles of grace that...

Paul and Silas died to self when they sang at midnight. They didn’t just sing, they sang loudly! They sang so loud that the other prisoners heard them. I often smile thinking about how bad they might have sounded! No doubt they proclaimed the faithfulness of God by singing hymns from the Old Testament. Maybe Today’s...

Throughout Scripture we have stories of people faced with circumstances that crushed their plans and their dreams. Many were walking by faith, doing exactly what God was directing them to do. Paul and Silas were imprisoned...

Someone has said: I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacation with better care than they do their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change. That’s the risk of a mission statement, isn’t it? Write it down, commit to it, knowing that to fulfill it will require change...

Last week we took a glimpse into the life of the Proverbs 31 “virtuous woman” and recognized that Lemuel’s mother used military terms to describe the dream wife for her son. Instead of calling her “virtuous”, let’s call her a warrior woman because the word for virtuous, hayil, regularly describes military action...

Where do you turn when life turns upside down? What if that crisis means you cannot work the job you love, build the family of your dreams, or enjoy the last years of your life in good health? In the months following the death of our son, Mark, I struggled to understand my role. I was not finished mothering our son...