One aspect of guarding your heart is having an awareness of what’s going on inside. Often, we can see what’s coming at us, but we fail to see how we are processing life internally and dishing it back out. Self-awareness in our culture is called emotional intelligence or EQ. It’s the ability to know yourself and how you relate to others. It’s an awareness of how you come across. Do you realize how you come across? Ask someone close to you, “How do others view me?” (Husbands, I dare you to ask your wife.) Some people are said to have low EQ, like the father who criticizes his kids for being on electronics way too much while he can’t even […]
Yearly Archives: 2020
101 posts
Proverbs 4:23 gives us this instruction: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (NIV). To guard and keep your heart means to protect what comes in and goes out. You have to constantly be on guard and keep your heart with all vigilance because it’s the command center for all your words, actions, and desires. John Flavel, an old Puritan pastor, used the example of guarding your heart like a besieged garrison with enemies on the outside and treacherous citizens on the inside. The imagery is dated, but the idea is good, so let me run with it in a modern equivalent. Before I was a follower of Christ, I had an unguarded and […]
We are thankful for the work that the Institute for Biblical Counseling and Discipleship is doing, and we were happy to learn that five of our authors have been featured in IBCD’s top ten most popular podcast episodes during this past year. They are: Shannon Kay McCoy, author of Help! I’m a Slave to Food Scott Mehl, author of Loving Messy People Dr. Charles Hodges, author of Good Mood, Bad Mood Nate Brooks & Anna Mondal, authors of Help! Our Sex Life Is Troubled by Past Abuse See the whole top-ten list and listen to the podcasts at IBCD’s website.
We are pleased to announce that we have several new titles in stock: The Trivial Life by Jason S. Lancaster When Disability Hits Home by Paul Tautges with Joni Eareckson Tada Help! I Live With Chronic Pain by Brad Brandt Help! My Child Has a Disability by Dave and Nancy Deuel Help! My Friend Has a Disability by Dave Deuel Help! My Spouse Died by Sue Nicewander Delaney Help! Our Sex Life Is Troubled by Past Abuse by Nate Brooks & Anna Mondal We also have a new bundle, the Family Disability Toolkit, which collects several of our disability-related titles at a discounted price: Family Disability Toolkit (Paperback) Family Disability Toolkit (ePub) Family Disability Toolkit (Kindle) In addition, we have […]
You may have noticed that our website was down for several days recently. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. We have restored the site and it is functioning properly again. Due to our website outage, we are extending our site-wide Black Friday Sale! Most of our titles are discounted, with only a few exceptions. Sale prices will remain in place through December 7th. Shop Books • Most full-size books are discounted 40% Shop Mini-books • Mini-books are discounted 30% Shop eBooks • Most ebooks are discounted 40% Find discounts across all of these categories: Audio | Books | Children’s Books | Counsel for the Heart | Coming Soon | eBooks | LifeLine Mini-books | New Resources | […]
For the past twenty plus years I have been a pastor. For the past twenty plus years I have been in and out of counseling. Counselors love me because I’m the classic blame shifter who is easy to spot. “What brings you in today?” My wife has issues. “Why do you think you struggle with anxiety?” Because my seven kids are driving me crazy. “Why are you so filled with fear and anger?” Because my congregation keeps picking on me. It’s like I’m still a child in a grown man’s body. The problem is still out there and not inside of me. When will I learn? Deep inside my regenerated heart, something is still off. Conversion doesn’t eliminate the battle […]
All Things Are From God God’s sovereignty, his rule over all, is the bedrock certainty for a proper theology of suffering. However, his sovereignty alone is not enough: we must maintain its connection to his goodness and wisdom. If we do not maintain this connection, we lose our perspective of God as the one who intimately cares for his creation, and we thereby undermine hope. Theologians refer to this connection as providence, which is one of the most comforting doctrines in the Bible. What Is Providence? By providence we mean God employs his sovereign power and wisdom to continuously preserve every part of his creation and guide it toward his intended purpose. Sometimes people misinterpret sovereignty as a cold, sterile, […]
When we see our kids headed in the wrong direction, we want to help turn them around. But ultimately, it’s our child’s choice. Craig Svensson, author of The Painful Path of a Prodigal, talks about his son’s ongoing battle with drug addiction. While Craig and his wife tried every avenue possible to find him help, Eric continued to use. After fifteen years on and off the streets, and in and out of hospitals, Svensson tells how Eric lost his battle with addiction in January 2017, dying sick and alone at the age of thirty. Tune in to your local radio station, or listen here: FamilyLife Today: Making Beauty from Ashes with Craig Svensson, November 20, 2020
Craig Svensson, author of The Painful Path of a Prodigal, continues his story on FamilyLife Today. Craig thought moving and the change of scenery would be good for the family, especially his son, Eric, who was struggling with drug addiction. But Eric sought out the same kind of friends he had before. He was forced by the court to attend AA meetings, where he met more people with drug connections. Eventually, Eric’s addiction became dangerous for the family, and they asked him to move out. Svensson talks openly about the heartache involved in watching a son choose opposite values from you as he fell deeper into the abyss of addiction. Tune in to your local radio station, or listen here: FamilyLife […]
In our attempt to understand God’s ways in the midst of our suffering there are two common temptations which often fight to claim the higher ground in our mind. Second Temptation: The Temptation to Remake God in Our Image If our conception of God is that he is only, or predominantly, love, and by this we mean that he does only what we perceive as good (for example, whatever does not involve pain), then irrational suffering tempts us to change our view of God to match our experience. An example of this is found in Nancy Eiesland’s influential book The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability. The author, a college professor in Atlanta and a lifelong sufferer of […]