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What Is the Christian Response to the Israel/Hamas Situation?

When I returned home from work last week, there was a message from the bank on the answering machine: "Please give us a call at your earliest convenience." That was it, and because of all the myriad...

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Are You Qualified to Study the Bible?

We live in a time and place of people fascinated by degrees, credentials, and man-made accolades, to the point that, when unimaginative employers look for people to fill the cubicles, they are more...

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What Is Backsliding, and Are You Doing It?

Too many of us are acquainted with the word, "backsliding," which, in its purest form, means to lose one's resolve to follow a chosen path. A recovering alcoholic who re-enters the bar circuit is an...

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Feeding Marshmallows to Our Minds

When I was growing up, I heard the mantra, "You are what you eat!" all the time. It's not said so much these days, which is ironic since much of what we eat is grown with pesticides, herbicides, and...

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Five Steps to Achieving Your Impossible Dream

Sixteen years ago, my husband the Norwegian Artist and I had an improbable dream: we wanted to find a place in the country and raise our kids there. I say improbable because 1) we had four kids and 2)...

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How Long Will We Let Other Christians Call Us Dogs?

Those of you who have lived with, or through, a fifteen-year-old girl know that adolescents of this age generally fight self-esteem issues. Call it hormones, peer pressure, society, or fat days,...

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Alone But Not Lonely

I live in a society that is desperately afraid of being alone. So alarmed are we of solitude that we define normalcy by how many groups we belong to: "I go to church, Sunday School, and small groups."...

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Longing for Success

If you want people to read an article you write, or watch a video you post, just make sure that the title has the word, "Success" in it. (I know. I just did that. Did it work?) Fortunately, I am not...

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Christianity Is Not a Political Party

We have two sets of friends that we have always wanted to put together in the same room: Set A is classic U.S.A. Republican party, and they worship George W. Bush. The world ended on the day he left...

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Are We Being Bullied to Think a Certain Way?

Think of the term, Judeo-Christian values. We bandy it about, especially we Christians, and the idea is that, because Jews and Christians share a common heritage (the Old Testament, and Abraham as our...

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When Mighty Church Leaders Fall, Do They Crush the People Underneath?

In our younger years, my husband the Norwegian Artist and I bicycled through small-town America, and for housing, we often asked a local church if we could camp in their basement. Encountering...

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“Jesus Loves You!” — Enough, Already

I don't know about you, but I am tired of being told, at every store I enter or order from online, that I am receiving the lowest prices -- ever! The statement is made so much and so sweepingly, that I...

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Why Doesn’t God DO Something?

On one of the Christian Google-Plus communities I follow, a perfidious little troll regularly posts photos of starving children, highlighting his point with accompanying commentary like, "Where is the...

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Three Things Christians Don’t Say Enough

Words are powerful, but not in the way prosperity preachers or New Age advocates claim. While words themselves do not convey any ability to create reality, simply because we utter them (e.g., "I CLAIM...

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Frightened, Freaked Out Christians

Like various government, corporate, and financial agencies, I scroll through Facebook to get an idea of how the populace is thinking, and the other day someone posted a video clip of Retired Air Force...

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Are We Dumbing Ourselves Down?

I have a friend who worked for the medical publication industry -- which creates articles and circulars that enjoin: "Get your flu shot and eat those veggies!" Years ago, she explained, the written...

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Improving Your Meditation Skills

Meditation is one of those words with multiple meanings, and some Christians are frightened by the concept because they think that meditating involves emptying their minds completely and allowing...

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“Why Are You So Afraid? Do You Still Have No Faith?”

This last week on Facebook was one of general fear, anxiety, panic and despair, not so much because everyone was in and out of relationships, or because Lucky Slots wasn't doing well, but because too...

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Is Singing in Church the Only Way to Worship?

If you're a Christian, and you've attended church, then you probably recognize the term: "Worship Service." This is the time, just after the announcements and immediately before the sermon, when the...

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Is God Calling You?

In our church days, when I sat in an interlocking chair, stared ahead at the big white screen, and sang words that flashed by, I used to wonder, vaguely, if God was calling me to do something, and I...

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