False teaching should make us mad. It should make us indignant for God’s glory and the souls of the lost. But does it ever cause us to mourn? If we felt this kind of grief, how would that change our words and actions towards false teachers? Perhaps we’d be better proclaimers of the truth they need.

Each of us is faced with decisions in life, and the hardest ones often involve people we love and know to be faithful. But have you ever felt this tension between Bible teachers you know and love? How do we discern what’s true even among the best of Bible teachers?

While living on this earth marred by sin’s curse, we will always be in this awkward place of celebration and mourning. Some losses that caused us grief may be restored and replaced, while others may not or cannot be. And so in those times we will walk our road holding hands with joy and grief, sometimes talking to one more than the other.

Our acts of faithfulness can at times seem so personal and pertinent to only ourselves, that over time our eyes slowly turn inward. Our self-centered hearts have a habit of turning us inward, even when something is meant to drive us outward to our neighbour and upward to God. How do we keep our gaze where it’s supposed to be in this daily plodding along?

Though I still blush at my overflowing emotions, I don’t dislike them as much as I once did. I can see the good in them, and I’m learning what it means to let them flourish while not letting them rule me. Our feelings are a part of God’s “very good” creation and a gift to be both acknowledged and stewarded to his glory.

Have you felt homesick before? Abraham likewise intimately understood what it was like to be uprooted from his home, but he learned to keep his eyes on the eternal promises of God.

Alzheimer’s took much of my grandmother’s memory, and I’m sure it took much of what she knew about God. After her death, I wondered what that forgetting meant for her. If she could forget me, if she could forget her own daughters, what did that mean for the spiritual things? Were they forgotten too? I laid awake at night and wondered at the same questions for myself. As I have grown older in both years and faith, I’ve grown to take comfort in God’s words of promise to His people.

What Corrie desires to show us in her book is that God is greater than any suffering we walk through, that the love and grace of his gospel permeates even the darkest places, like a Nazi concentration camp.

“Be patient,” has been our daily lesson lately. With newborn twins on the way, I especially wanted him to learn that it's okay to wait a few minutes before his requests were answered. And yet, at twenty-three years old, patience is a lesson I’m still learning. And like most lessons, to teach patience is also to exemplify patience.

We want peace. How do we tuck peace away in our hearts when we live in a sin-struck world? Where do we find “peace that surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4:6-7) when our world feels anything but peaceful?

In those moments of trying to string words together into cohesive prayers, I came before God naked. I had nothing to show. I felt like a peasant in rags before the high king in his royal robes. Who am I Lord, to stand before you? None of my good works could carry me to his throne or make me presentable in his presence. Only Christ’s righteousness brought me there.

I have memorials in my home. I have pieces that provoke feelings, memories, and thoughts. For each one that brings grief, I have another that gives me a glimpse at eternity. But even these memorials are temporary. I also need something that doesn’t tarnish. Something everlasting. I need to treasure God’s Word in my heart. Perhaps in physical ways that I can see and tangible ways I can touch.

We often condemn fear, but is there perhaps a level of fear that’s good and God-given? Like the fear of animal attacks or our children running in the road. We’re told not to worry, not to fear, but to be bold and courageous. How do we reconcile these two? How do we know the difference between good fear and bad fear?

The night before the cross, Jesus took his friends to a common place: the Garden of Gethsemane. He knew His suffering, humiliation, and death were near, but He didn’t hide. Instead, He prayed and asked His closest friends to pray with Him. In this prayer, he instructs us how to pray in the midst of our suffering.

I often bristle at corrections from fellow believers who point out point out my faults, failures, or sins. My natural tendency (and probably yours too) is to be defensive. However, this doesn’t need to be our only reaction. God’s Word shows us another way.

So many mothers struggle to breastfeed their babies. It’s crushing. For moms who already have hormones making their emotions turbulent, adding the difficulty of breastfeeding makes for heartache. Where is the hope of the gospel even in this battle with my angry baby and my engorged breasts?

Just as the Old Testament saints and the Early Church had to watch closely for false teachers among them, so we still do today. We can’t rely on our pastors, mentors, teachers, or favorite bloggers to tell us who is false and who isn’t. We need to be equipped to discern for ourselves. Here’s how.

Though I haven’t done anything physically that might rend a person’s heart-strings, what if I’ve spoken words that have? Do I ever give heart-string rending counsel? To bind up a broken heart, we often give counsel that sounds good but is devoid of the gospel. How do we change that?

We’ve been public about the lives and deaths of these babies not to draw attention to ourselves but because we want to acknowledge their lives. Though these babies never breathed the air we breathe, though they never cried, and though they never grew beyond such a tiny size, they are life. And life lost should always be a life acknowledged and grieved.

Each of us knows the sickening feeling of guilt over our sins. It isn’t pleasant, and sometimes it comes unannounced. Yet, we also know it was by recognizing our smothering guilt that we confessed our sins and trusted in Christ for salvation. Is this guilty feeling good, even though it feels so bad? What do we do with our guilty consciences?