My daughter loves elephants. She always has—so we often find ourselves watching elephant documentaries. Recently, we watched one that took place during a drought, and the elephants were struggling to find water. The matriarch had to decide: Would she lead her family down a 400-foot cliff face to find water? Or would she have them skip the perilous descent and risk dehydration and death? The choice seemed like a few that I am currently facing. Should I attempt the cliff and do this very hard, near-impossible thing? Or do I accept the inevitable suffering that will come if I take the other optio ..read more

Death is not the worst thing that can happen in a marriage. Unfaithfulness is. Lies, cover-ups, any worldly affection that surpasses one’s affection for the other—these are more complicated griefs that get reignited most every day after the betrayal. A third person, whether known or not, seems to have intruded into the marriage relationship and refuses to leave.  Reconciliation is certainly possible after marital betrayal. The determining factor is ending the unfaithfulness. If the unfaithful person has given evidence that he or she has genuinely returned, marriages reconcile more often t ..read more

In counseling conversations, counselors are often looking for the places where people are motivated to change. The exploration process leads to insight: counselors help people see themselves, their problems, God, and others in a more accurate light. That leads to the question, “What do you want to do in response to this new clarity that you have gained?” This is a question of motivation. Many of us may struggle here as we find, well, we just don’t feel motivated to do much of anything that will be productive. Others may find that they have no idea what to do in response. There is no vision for ..read more

How many times have you been in a precarious situation, but the person in charge was not concerned? So you took your lead from them and decided that there was no reason for alarm?  I grew up in the same area where I now live. My parents moved away the day I graduated from high school, and I was out of the area at various schools for over a decade. I moved back when I was given the opportunity to work at CCEF. When my wife and I began our house search, I remembered that a neighbor from my hometown had gone into real estate sales, so we tracked him down and asked him to help us. We ended up ..read more

The reality cannot be denied—the majority of teens are viewing pornography—whether on purpose or by accident.1 We know porn is everywhere, but I think many parents fail to realize what characterizes today’s pornography. Internet porn is made up of moving images with sounds depicting every type of sexual activity and orientation. It is dark, it is free, and it is evil.  What is worse than our children’s exposure to pornography is why they are choosing to view it. Of the children who admitted to intentionally searching for pornography, nearly two-thirds of them revealed they had done so for ..read more

Is God still listening? Why doesn’t he answer my prayer? This is my question, my counselees’ question, and a question that every one of us asks at some point in our lives. We are praying for something that God himself defines as good: the salvation of a loved one, the healing of someone in pain, or justice for a horrible situation. Often, prayers continue to spill out of our hearts, and yet there seems to be silence from above.  What is God up to? When my faith reawakened in my early 20s, I loved learning more about the Old Testament. Isaiah became a favorite, especially chapter 55. It sp ..read more

I don’t know about you, but I am not brave. I dread criticism and judgment. I’d rather work behind the scenes than live in the spotlight and be open to the critique of others. The world is hostile and people can be harsh. Let someone who likes the attention rise up and be the focus. Have you ever uttered these sentiments? If so, you are not alone. Consider the woman who is afraid to speak up at work when something seems unethical. The college student who fears sharing his beliefs publicly and being labeled intolerant. A man called to a position for which he feels utterly ill-equipped. A family ..read more

In biblical counseling, we certainly hope to speak and write what is true. Even more, we prefer to write what is both true and lived. This story has been lived in marriage, which, for me, is a laboratory of love and wisdom that I hope affects my other relationships. Over the last six months, my wife has had some erratic and difficult physical symptoms. From the moment they started, I knew they were alarming to her—and she rarely gets alarmed. Within the first few days, I knew that the symptoms were not simply going to pass, so I was committed to going through them with her. I didn’t know all t ..read more

It’s striking that the church in Corinth could muster the courage to ask Paul about sex—something so personal and delicate. It’s something that’s universally difficult to talk about, let alone address in a letter to an apostle. It is even more surprising that they ask about sexless marriages, to which Paul responds, “Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer” (1 Cor 7:5).  Our modern minds might react in any one of three ways to this statement.  “Don’t most people know that sexual intimacy is good within th ..read more

Over the past year, I’ve observed that my son becomes panicky after he asks for forgiveness. If you don’t immediately assure him that you forgive him, he gets upset. He quickly becomes distressed and cries out, “You don’t forgive me!”  I do find it endearing that children are much more open about their emotions compared to adults. When my son feels this hard emotion, he expresses it openly and in an impassioned way. As best as I can put words to the state of his little heart in these moments, his cry is “Are we okay? Are we okay?” When you have sinned and ask for forgiveness, the reality ..read more