I’m pretty sure it is John Piper in Future Grace who uses the illustration of the muddy windshield, spattered with the mud of unbelief, and how we need a perspective adjustment to see straight. This is a helpful metaphor, because sin really muddies our understanding.

Once a little resentment, a little discontent, a little disappointment, or a little envy steals into our hearts and minds,  nothing is in focus any more. The devil loves to fish in troubled waters, and the water can get pretty stirred up in a very short time.

Once a woman told me she was ready to leave her husband. When I asked her the obvious question of why? she said it was because he always left his socks on the floor. She needed a perspective adjustment.

If a woman is minding her own business, doing her work cheerfully, when along comes discontent disguised as friendly concern and splatters her clean windshield, she has to do something fast. Either she can deal with it immediately (turn on the wipers!) or she can let it sit. And discontent is never static. It grows. One discontent leads to another, and pretty soon the windshield is positively plastered with mud. No wonder you can’t see anything and you get a warped perspective on the road ahead. Read More

I mentioned some time ago that we need to have a theology of affliction. By that I mean that the Bible has a lot to say about how we are to handle affliction, troubles, and trials. So the Christian woman ought to turn first to the Scriptures to see what her duties are in any difficult situation she finds herself in. Let’s consider a handful.

Have you been wronged? Then we are told to return good for evil.

Are you persecuted? We are to bless those who bring us the trouble and pray for them.

Have you been slandered? Lied about? Jesus is still being slandered today. How does He handle it? He could strike His slanderers down at any given moment, couldn’t He? But He bears with them, fulfilling all His purposes. So when people say all kinds of false things about us, we are to rejoice.

Huh? How do we do that? We are to do these things by faith, by grace. Our flesh certainly is not inclined to do these things, but resurrecting grace enables us to pray for our Read More

Certainly feminism illustrates for us the complaint cycle, but women of all persuasions do the same thing in a myriad of ways. It all begins with discontent. I think it is safe to assume that Eve had been content in the garden until the serpent made his evil suggestion. “Why don’t you get to eat from this tree?” Apparently, Eve had not felt deprived until that moment. The discontent is what set her up for the deception (aka, lie) that immediately followed. And she bit.
Women are far less vulnerable to deception when they are content. How many contented Christian women are apt to marry an unbeliever? No chance. But a discontented woman is more prone to rationalize and swallow the deceit. “Well, he went to church as a kid. And he’s not an atheist. And I prayed that if God didn’t want me to marry him, that He would take away my love for him, and He didn’t take it away, so I think that is a sign.” A Read More

It’s pretty clear by the truckloads of articles and books that keep showing up that more and more women who bought into the feminist “dream” are now taking it all back, acknowledging that it was a big flop. And, of course, they are complaining now that they are either approaching or are in their forties, that their big careers are not fulfilling, that all they really want is a husband and children, that time is running out, and that all the attractive men are going for the younger women.

The women’s movement has always been a complaining movement. Back in the heyday, they were complaining about having to stay home with the kids while the men got all the Read More

Winter is wearing on. Christmas is over, but it’s still cold outside. The closets are overflowing with things for the discard pile. The pantry has sticky honey circles on the second shelf up. The kids are fussing at each other.  It’s too cold to play outside. Or, if the kids are grown and married, they’ve all gone back to their respective homes with their respective spouses and children. The house seems empty because it is empty. The great resolution to lose a few pounds has given way to a weary feeling of “who cares anyway?”

Oh dear. Look out. It’s the January Blahs, and you may feel like just going back to bed and coming out sometime in April or May when the daffodils are up. What’s with this?

First off, let’s all realize that the January Blahs are very predictable. You are not the only one who feels a little disoriented by a new year. Part of it is coming down from a solid month (or more) of Christmas motivation. There was so much to do, to plan for, to Read More