: Life is hard. God is good. We need each other.
This recipe for braised beef brisket is surprisingly simple and turns out amazing every single time. Flavorful and tender, this one’s going to wow you!
I’ve been making Pioneer Woman’s brisket recipe with my own tweaks for years. When I made it recently for a family gathering, my sister (who had never made brisket before, nor tried mine) said, “Why isn’t this recipe on your blog?”
Good question, Amy. Here ya go!
14 short prayers based in Scripture that you can pray for your country. With everything going on you might feel a bit powerless, but you are not! God’s word gives hope, strength, and purpose.
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14
Prayer can give the pray-er a lot of comfort and peace. But so much more than that…God flat out tells us that he responds to prayer and he acts.
Want some proof?
Moses sought God’s favor and he relented. He prayed God’s own words about his promises to Abraham. And the LORD withheld his punishment.
So he said he would destroy them– had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to keep his wrath from destroying them. Psalm 106:23
But in another case, God told Ezekiel he was looking for someone to stand in the gap and found no one, so judgement fell.
Both groups of people deserved God’s punishment, but in one instance God relented and in the other he did not. The difference seems to be the prayers of God’s people.
You may feel powerless in the face of events that are beyond your control, but God’s people are never powerless.
Before we ever speak or act, our first order of business is to pray. Whatever our differences may be, if you are a Bible-believing Christian, I invite you to pray God’s word for your country. It may make a real difference.
Join me, will you?
Finding similarities between Biblical figures and characters in our favorite stories can help us grow in our understanding of Scripture and ourselves.
Guest Post
I’m pleased to be able to introduce you to a friend of mine, Lacey Rene. Lacey is a pastor’s wife and serves at a summer youth camp that we also attend. She taught a class a few years ago on this topic, and it was a big hit. Welcome, Lacey!
My family loves Disney! Honestly a day doesn’t go by without a Disney song being sung or a Disney movie quote being shouted in unison. But our first and true love is God. My family loves serving God and we take joy in daily studying His word.
These two loves inspired me to see if there were any similarities between my favorite Bible characters and my favorite Disney characters. I was blown away with just how many similarities I found!
To some the Bible may seem dry and outdated but I assure you it is not. It is completely relevant to our modern lives and it will change your life if you let it.
Join me as we dive into a comparison of Peter and Merida.
A new perspective on how Christians make entertainment choices and engage with the hypersexualized media that pervades our culture.
I was compensated for my time in writing this post. As always, all opinions are my own.
How Christians should engage with culture is not a new topic. Jesus talked about it, Paul wrote about it in his letters in the New Testament, probably every church leader since then has dealt with it. And if you’re a parent, it can consume you.
How do we equip our children to handle the hypersexualized media that pervades our culture?
This has been a topic of discussion in our home since our kids were young, and hasn’t stopped now that our boys are 21 and 19. In fact it’s even more relevant now, as we want to prepare them to lead homes of their own one day.
In all of the years that my husband and I have delved into this issue, the goal of all of the material we’ve seen has been the same: personal purity. And that is a noble and God-pleasing goal.
But it’s not the only goal.
If you eat yogurt, you should give homemade yogurt-making a try. It’s not difficult, and tastes better than store bought!
Yogurt is something that I am always telling myself I should eat more of. And now that I’ve started making it myself, I finally am!
There’s something fresher about it that I just can’t get enough of. Plus, I get to play around with it a little to make it perfect for us.
I haven’t tried straining my yogurt yet to make thicker, Greek-style yogurt (which is what I usually buy if I’m buying yogurt), but it’s on the agenda! The thinner yogurt works better for us now, since I’m the only one who eats it as is. The fellas in my house will only eat yogurt if it’s in a smoothie (or in frozen yogurt form) so this is perfect.
However it’s coming to us, we’re all being given cocoon time here. Don’t look back after this experience, and wish that you had done more with the time you’ve been given.
They say the five stages of Spring, 2020 are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
That’s a little joke.
But it has been a wild ride, hasn’t it? While I wouldn’t go so far as to call the required self-isolation a gift, I do believe that we should try to learn something from difficult experiences.
I should pause here to tell you that this is not a guilt-trip to make you feel badly that you are staying in the bathroom extra long to get away from your kids or using chocolate as a coping mechanism. Both are valid responses to what we’re going through, in my opinion.
All I hope to do is be a little encouraging bird on your shoulder reminding you of what you already know:
You may look back after this experience, and wish that you had done more with the time you’ve been given.