David Mathis writes forDesiring God Listening is one of the easiest things you'll ever do, and one of the hardest. In a sense, listening is easy or hearing is easy. It doesn't demand the initiative and energy required in speaking. That's why "faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17). The point is that hearing is easy, and faith ...

Spiritual warfare is a reality that is ever present, but can often can go unnoticed. When things in life are great the family's healthy, the bank account's growing, work is fulfilling, relationships are filled with love we can tend to be completely ignorant of the war being raged all around us. We are encouraged by the spiritual forces of darkness and our own sinful fl...

Have you ever said something that you instantly wished you could take back? Of course you have. All of us have. In the heat of the moment, almost without thinking, we spit out words intended to tear down rather than build up. Then what happens next? In many cases, the person we've attacked retaliates they fight back. And while we may have regretted our words at first, the...

What we expect from our marriages can have a huge impact on how we respond to trouble in our marriages. If we believe and expect that marriage should be like the fairy tale examples we're exposed to in childhood, then the slightest hint of trouble will lead us to question and doubt. We may start to ask, "Did I marry the right person?" Or perhaps we'll begin to lose faith i...

One of the first things we commonly discuss in biblical counseling, regardless of who walks into the counseling room or what issues they're facing, is the reason why we all exist. We talk about our purpose in life. Since mankind was created by God, we must look to God to learn why He created us, to learn what He designed us for. Everything created, whether by God or by ma...

In all of our struggles with sin in this world there exist multiple layers of issues that need to be addressed. If you simplified things down to two main layers, you could say there is always both a fruit problem and a root problem. The fruit problem is what's external and visible, while the root problem is internal and invisible. Root problems are beliefs, desires, lusts ...

One week from tonight we will begin the last block of ourbiblical counseling trainingcourse. This is a very exciting time for us! Last summer we kicked off our first run through this training course by covering basics of counseling, then in the fall continued by studying common subjects in counseling. After a break for the holidays we started the new year with training reg...

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You and I live in a society where instant gratification is not only desired, but also demanded. We want what we want when we want it. And with constant advances in technology, in lots of cases those desires of the momentcanbe instantly fulfilled. Want news? There are plenty of apps for that. Something to eat? Just hit up a quick-service restaurant. Need to do some online s...

Americans are well acquainted with the idea of pursuing happiness. Our "unalienable right" to do so is laid out in the Constitution. But we're not alone in our pursuit. Every person on the planet is a happiness seeker, whether they know it or not. It's part of human wiring, part of the way God fearfully and wonderfully created us. But there's a problem. The problem is th...