“Then God said to Noah, ‘Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives’ ” (Genesis 8:15-16 ɴɪᴠ). 

God calls us out of our grief when He knows we are ready. Often we grow impatient and restless while we wait for life to feel normal again. God alone knows what we are facing and what our “new normal” will look like, so He uses waiting to prepare us. While we are waiting, we need to make sure we are allowing the time to be used to train and equip us for the next steps.  

Readiness was revealed to Noah after he received the dove with the olive leaf, evidence of the water receding and earth emerging. Will you be ready when you first see your own olive leaf, a sign of a restored land, an emerging life God has prepared? 

More

As the closing passage of the Bible, the book of Revelation is both intriguing and significant, containing topics and themes that shouldn’t be neglected. When it comes to understanding Revelation, scholars throughout the ages have taken four primary interpretive approaches. 

More

At its heart, clutter is a lack of peace. Clutter keeps talking to us, weighing us down, and keeping us from living the life we were designed to live. Decluttering our homes is thus a step toward freedom.

But where should we begin? Sometimes the first step to decluttering is actually taking a step. So I came up with this list of things you can get rid of right now. Today.

More

Why are some Old Testament prophecies so perplexing? And why did many of the Jews in New Testament times refuse to believe that Jesus was the Messiah spoken of in those prophecies?

Some Old Testament prophecies are difficult to understand because they contain, within one prophecy, information relevant to both comings of Christ. The Old Testament prophets did not see the long church age separating the two comings. More specifically, they did not see the two comings with clear understanding.

More

"How long have you been married?"

A young professor interrupted my talk at the University of Tennessee with that question, voiced in a sarcastic tone. I had just been telling the 300 faculty members and administrators how excited I was to be married and how I looked forward to a lifetime of happiness with my wife.

“Six months,” I replied.

He shot back, “Just wait and see how you talk after you’ve been married for five years!”

More

“Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” (Amos 3:3).

So much is made of the importance of the right kind of friends in the Bible that we can’t treat this part of our lives lightly. 

The main quality to look for in a biblical friendship is how much the two of you love and fear God. What Amos wrote is a picture of being in agreement on many levels. You will have all different kinds of friends, but your closest friends—those with whom you walk closely—should be the kind of friends who impart something of the goodness of the Lord to you every time you are with them.

More

As Christians, we trust in the providence of God. We know that God often works behind the scenes in events on earth in order to accomplish His will. But since God has an eternal plan He is already accomplishing, where do our prayers fit into the picture?

Take a look at Genesis 24, which recounts the story of Isaac and Rebekah, and consider the following insights on the biblical text.

• “Wife for my son” (24:3): Because Abraham was getting old, he wanted to take steps to ensure the continuation of the line of promise and the fulfillment of the covenant God made with him. He didn’t want to die before ensuring the next generation in this line of promise. So he had Eliezer, his chief steward, swear to find a wife for Isaac from among his own people.

More

Community is powerful. It allows you to feel like you are part of a family, something singles desperately want and need. But even more importantly, it shows the world the love of Jesus. 

Here are some steps to take toward community living…

Step 1: Ask yourself if your "independent" life is worth it. 

More

Join bestselling author Mindy Starns Clark as she shares fascinating insights into the writing process for The Amish Clockmaker, the third and final book in The Men of Lancaster County series. What surprised Mindy about her research on clockmaking? What challenges did she and her coauthor Susan Meissner face writing about Amish culture in the 1950s? Learn the answers to these questions and more in the following interview.

The Amish Clockmaker is the final book in The Men of Lancaster County series. Where did the idea for the plot come from?

Mindy Starns Clark: Susan Meissner and I started this one with just a title, actually. We loved the idea of an Amish clockmaker and could almost imagine who he was and what he was like simply because of his craft. We were eager to make our third and final book in the series one that blended my knack for creating compelling mysteries with Susan’s gift of writing engaging “time slip” novels. So we went with two storylines—one modern and one historical—where our modern-day hero works to solve a mystery surrounding our historical hero. 

More

In this first post of a two-part series, we'll look at some ways that we singles can create our own family. Here are a few steps to get us on our way...

Step 1: Lift your eyes up to the mountains (Psalm 121:1-2) and away from your navel.

As singles, it is tempting to focus on ourselves and on our lack of love and family. We think about love, we talk about love, we read about love, we listen to love songs, we watch movies about love. No wonder we are semi-obsessed with the idea that romantic love is what will fill our insatiable desire for value and worth. 

On the one hand, God is incredibly gracious toward us in our pain. He doesn't question or downplay the difficult process we are walking through as singles.

On the other hand, he knows that wallowing in our loneliness on a regular basis is destructive to our well-being. Even more importantly, it distracts us from being our best, beautiful self in a world that desperately needs the love that we have to give.

More