Run With Horses

Family Friday: Wisdom, Friends and Peer Pressure

This week we consider the difference between smart and wise before discussing friends, always a challenge for missionary kids, and peer pressure.

Marriage A to Z: Worldview

Your worldview is important for making good decisions. It is a foundation for setting priorities in life and marriage.

Unity Part 2: Forgive One Another

Quote of the Day: Those who cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they themselves must pass. - Confucious
News and Culture: Jose Alba asks for forgiveness. Winona Judd gives a simple way to ask for forgiveness and reconciliation.
Chloe's Corner: Live With The Broken
Find her online at chloejanelle.com
Living Theology: To forgive is to wipe the slate clean, releasing someone else from your need to punish them for their sin against you.

Family Friday: Siblings!

What is it like with siblings? Any benefits? We think so!

Marriage A to Z: Values in Marriage

What are our values?
Where do they come from? 
Why are they important?
How you answer these questions will have a great impact on your marriage!

Unity in the Church

Quote of the Day: "In order to have a winner, the team must have a feeling of unity; every player must put the team first — ahead of personal glory." - Paul 'Bear' Bryant
If you don't know who Paul 'Bear' Bryant is, we can't be friends. 
One of the best football coaches of all time. A genuine great man. He laid a foundation for Alabama football that continues till today. He sought to make his players better people.
To the quote. A team must have unity to reach it's potential and it is the same with a church.
One key aspect is putting the good of the team, the church, above your own personal glory and rights. Team first. In the context of the church, put God's glory first. Be OK with having other people receive credit. Embrace humility.
News and Culture: Unity is a little like exercise: A great idea, a noble idea, but hard, and all too easy to forego. Yet history tells us that America works best when just enough of us see politics as a mediation of differences rather than as total, unrelenting warfare. From the article- Want Unity For Real? Then America Needs to Get Back to Facts
https://time.com/5936862/america-unity-evidence-reason/
 
Exercise is hard work! Weight lifting, running. Takes time and effort to up to a good level.
But you only reap the benefits if you persist and keep working on it. You lose ground if you stop going forward. Your health requires ongoing effort just to maintain. Unity requires ongoing effort to maintain. Without maintenance it begins to deteriorate.
Working through differences is a real chore. Not fun but necessary.
 
Chloe's Corner: What You Can't Say
 
Living Theology: Why is Unity so Important?
God is one, we are one. Unity is the eternal reality that we strive for in the now.
The relationship between people in the church is part of what draws others to God. We have a special, supernatural love that connects us and motivates us to work on our differences with grace.
Why so hard? Sin! Selfishness, self-centeredness, thinking about our own needs and desires first. Too many of us live as if this life is all there is and all that matters. The family of God doesn't have the place in our hearts and minds that it does in the heart and mind of God. We aren't willing to sacrifice and work for the church the way that Jesus did and still does.
How do we live it? 
Genuinely put God first.
Make real efforts to consider others better than yourself. 
Serve others. Don't fight for your rights but give them to God.
Live with eternal values. Not for today but for eternity.

Family Friday: Happy family, submission and rebellious teens

Another Family Friday and this time we struggle with the after effects of Covid but manage to have a good conversation about what makes a happy family. The idea of submission to each other, in a marriage and in a family and the rebellion of teens also made an appearance.
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Marriage A to Z: Understanding a Marriage

A good marriage requires understanding.
First, understand yourself. Second, Understand your spouse. Then we both need to understand the temptations and trials that can destroy your marriage. And last, Understand what builds your marriage up.

Be an Encourager!

Quote of the Day:
Be an Encourager: When you encourage others, you boost their self-esteem, enhance their self-confidence, make them work harder, lift their spirits and make them successful in their endeavors. Encouragement goes straight to the heart and is always available. Be an encourager. Always.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
 
A key thought here, encouragement is always available. You can always find a way to be an encourager if you want to. Want to! Work at it! Grow in it.
News and Culture:
goodnewsnetwork.org;  www.positive.news; sunnyskyz.com
People are tired of depressing, distressing news!
A lot has been written about how too much bad news can lead to poor mental and physical health. Why does it have such an impact? It strongly influeces what you think about and how you think about it. 
 
Many people spend hours a day under the influence of social media, current news (mostly the negative news), and local gossip. It is no wonder that mental health is such a huge problem in America today. Take all of the negatives of SM and news and add in a large dose of the idealize life portrayed in movies and music and you too will soon be on your way to the funny farm! 
 
How do you maintain a healthy mental state?  Well, how about turning to the One who offers rest? Who offers peace that passes understanding?  The problem for us is that we have a knowledge of Jesus and the rest only He offers but we are too distracted by the burdens of this life to pursue Him beyond a fraction of our day on Sunday. 6 days filling your mind with garbage and expecting 1 hour of cleaning on Sunday to balance you out should seem a little strange. 
 
Fill your mind with His truth, His promises and His thoughts. Limit the influx of garbage and fight lies with truth.
 
Chloe's Corner: I Just Gotta Wonder
Living Theology: Encourage One Another
 
1 Thess. 5:11 - Therefore encourage one another and build up one another/
Heb.3:13 - But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today”
 
It is clearly a Biblical command that we encourage each other. What does that mean?
Encourage:  1. to inspire with courage, spirit, or hope 2. to spur on, stimulate
 
That gives us something to work with.
To Inspire, to spur on. When someone is dragging, to help them along the way.  I like that it includes the phrase "with courage, spirit, or hope" we all face times we lack the courage to go forward. Maybe in making changes in our personal life, maybe in reaching out in one of our relationships with the intention of bringing Jesus in. Fear can freeze us in place, encouragement spurs us onward. We have all face time when we lack hope that our current situation will ever end. Encouragement brings hope for the future.
 
How do you encourage others?
Words
From "you can do it" to "you are not alone"
From "I"m praying for you" to " how can I help?"
Tell others about needs and invite them to help. Maybe you can"t help but you know someone who can, be a go between and ask for the person who can't.
 
Actions
Jump in and serve when you see a need!
Pray (and let others know you are praying for them)
Be there
 
Some are gifted in this area, a real natural. Others of us have to work at it a bit harder but we are all commanded to do it! It is so important for the church to live out lives of encouragement.
 
The world is a hard place to be a Christian today. Make it a little easier for those who know you.

Family Friday: What makes us, us?

Norman and Susan are learning a lot about how their kids view the world through this podcast! Join us as we explore our family for another Family Friday.
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