According to the Council on Foreign Relations’s Global Conflict Tracker, 27 ongoing conflicts are currently taking place globally. They categorize conflict into three groups: worsening, unchanging, and improving. Right now, no conflict is described as improving. Of those worsening: Conflict in Ukraine. War in Afghanistan. Political instability in Lebanon. War in Yemen. The Rohingya crisis…

The Satisfaction with Life Scale was created by researchers as a way to assess an individual’s satisfaction with their life as a whole. People judge how they feel about the five following statements using a 7-scale scoring system, with 1 being “strongly disagree” with the statement and 7 being “strongly agree” with the statement. 1….

I remember growing up and playing the Game of LIFE with my sister, Deb, and others. It’s a board game where players travel in small plastic automobiles that pass along, over, and through small mountains, buildings, and other features. They travel through life – from early adulthood to retirement, with college if necessary, jobs, marriage,…

Madonna, American singer-songwriter, said in a Vanity Fair magazine: “All of my will has always been to conquer some horrible feeling of inadequacy. I’m always struggling with that fear. . . . My drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre. And that’s always pushing me, pushing me. Because even though I’ve…

Judd Apatow is an American comedian, director, producer, and screenwriter, and incidentally, was born in Flushing, NY. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Judd Apatow responded to the interviewer’s statement: “You’ve said that as an entertainer, all the success in the world won’t heal you.” Apatow replied, “It doesn’t do anything. There is a great…

Being in an airport recently, I stepped onto a moving sidewalk. I walked through the airport a little faster than walking on my own power. I was still walking, but I could walk with ease because of the force underneath me propelling me forward. Walking in the Spirit is like that. Paul urged us: “Since…

Henri Nouwen said, “I cannot continuously say no to this or no to that, unless there is something ten times more attractive to choose. Saying no to my lust, my greed, my needs, and the world’s powers takes an enormous amount of energy. The only hope is to find something so obviously real and attractive…

True or False: Freedom means you can do anything you want. Answer: False. Oh sure, you’re free to choose to disobey the law. But then you’d have to cover it up, keep it a secret, and most likely pay for it later. You’re also free to tell a lie. But then you’d have to keep…

A young man asked, “I am in earnest about forsaking ‘the world’ and following Christ. But I am puzzled about worldly things. What is it I must forsake?” “Colored clothes, for one thing. Get rid of everything in your wardrobe that is not white. Stop sleeping on a soft pillow. Sell your musical instruments and…

Sin pulls us down. Christ lifts us up. We affirm, “Christ died for me.” This is called substitution, because we should have died for our sins. But God in his great love for us sent Jesus as the perfect sacrifice to die in our place. We also affirm, “I died in Christ.” This is called…