Recent content by RiverOL

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    Anatomy of an Adventure [ 1 min read ★ ] . . . unless a grain of wheat falls . . . and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit—John 12:24 When men head off, toward something in the distance, toward something good and worthy—but also into unknown obstacles...
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    Obedient Leadership In The Face Of Laws To Kill Babies The Enemy is great at paralyzing our faith through fear. We stare at the opposition long enough and we lose our courage to do what God has called us to do. Elijah, the prophet of God, stood against the enemies of God and stood for the Lord...
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    The Kingdom of Kingdoms God created Adam and Eve to be king and queen over the earth. Their job was to rule the earth to the glory of God. They failed. Jesus Christ is the second and last Adam, and the church is His bride, the second Eve. Christ is King, the church is His queen. He will...
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    What if we cared about God’s reputation more than our own? In an age of personal branding, social media influence, and relentless networking, people spend enormous energy curating and managing their own reputations. From manicured LinkedIn profiles to carefully tailored Instagram posts, modern...
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    How Do You Know If Your Relationship is Healthy? Dear Terry, I’m engaged and considering getting married in a few months to a man who I’ve been dating for about a year. A few of my friends have questions about Todd because he sometimes lets me down and doesn’t follow through on all of his...
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    Get Finally Unstuck [ 1 min read ★ ] A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity—Proverbs 17:17 “I’ve got this.” It’s a phrase used often by men, in one form or another. We say it to ourselves; we say it to others. And, most times, we have...
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    When Life Gives You Rain, Dance When Life Gives You Rain, Dance Last week, my daughter and her four children came to visit from the “sunny South.” Little did they know that they would be spending their days in the “Rainy North,” and not just rainy, but flooding. I wrote about it. For many...
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    8 Ways to Bond With Your Stepchild Most of the stepparents who contact me for support tell me they had no idea what they were getting into. One stepdad, Steve, put it this way, “I was never a father before, and at the ripe “young” age of 42, I was thinking that I was somehow going to “get by”...
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    Pray For Those Who Take from You in the Cover of Night Sometimes we pray things we don’t want to mean, and prayers we don’t want to pray, especially when they are prayed in the moments it feels like peace has been taken from us. Though we pray them because we know we need to mean them and...
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    50 Years Ago, Nanci and I Said “I Do” Tomorrow, is Nanci’s and my 50th wedding anniversary. I thank God for His faithfulness and the time we had together. I’m so grateful for how Nanci put up with me for all those years, and for being not only my wife, but also my best friend and my...
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    When the Center Holds: A Tribute to My Father’s Legacy Thankful That the Center Held I have seen the end, and in the end, the center holds. Dad was breathing every six seconds or so, Victorian novels had prepared me for the rattle, no book for the sound. Dad, dear old Dad, Daddy, the guy we...
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    This Is the Lord’s Table: A Sacred Pause for Examination The Lord’s Table is a powerful opportunity to examine ourselves in a way that moves us towards repentance and confession, and ultimately to greater spiritual transformation and infilling of the Spirit. As we come to the Table, we...
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    How Fight For Peace But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace James 3: 17-18 “I know that every good and...
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    Trust No One [ 1 min read ★ ] The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts—Psalm 28:7 The Apostle Paul set a challenge before us: "having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor" (Ephesians 4:25). No small...
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    Emerging from Isolation [ 1 min read ★ ] For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them—Matthew 18:20 Imagine, for a moment, a man ever isolated, living alone in the mountains, perhaps. Imagine him living a vigorous, adventurous...
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