Recent content by RiverOL

Find Your Identity in God, Not Your Suffering We live in a time when we are defined as disabled, bipolar, alcoholic, ADHD, victims of lupus, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and nearly everything else. Our condition easily becomes our primary reference point. I am an insulin-dependent diabetic...

Your Next Chapter [ 1 min read ★ ] . . . he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come—2 Corinthians 5:17 We write with God all the time. Working alongside him, we write the stories of our lives. He creates the settings and the...

Come Close To God For Enduring Hope The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him. The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him. Lamentations 3: 24-25 My friend’s daughter was extremely sick. Sick as in whatever mystery illness that was plaguing her was...

Irresponsible Worry [ 1 min read ★ ] And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?—Matthew 6:27 Something’s coming. Doesn’t it always feel like that? Maybe it’s something financial . . . maybe work-related . . . maybe...

The Power of God’s Truth in Everyday Life I have been teaching a summer Bible study class to a group of precious seniors at a local assisted living facility. We have been discussing the attributes of God. We have, of course, talked about God as omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent...

Walking the Four Stages of Faith with Good Leaders In my last blog post, I looked at the four stages of faith and conversion that we commonly go through as followers of Jesus: calling, challenge, catalytic moments, and convergence. In this post, we examine what qualities Good Leaders will...

Top 7 Bible Verses About Old Age or the Elderly Want to know how to age gracefully? Do it with the Lord by your side. Every day we live is an opportunity to know Him more. The most exciting part is that God never ages. He remains the same beautiful, layered, complex, simple, exciting, peaceful...

Doubt Is the New Dogma People say this generation has lost faith–– in nearly everything, whether in God, in love, in institutions, or in the future. But I think Freya India gets it exactly right: it’s not that we lost faith. It’s that we never learned it. Not faith in a narrow, religious...

Marriage Killer: The Cares of This World In the parable of the sower, Jesus discusses how the Word of God hits some people’s hearts. Some people bear fruit for God as a result. But others do because they exhibit “thorny soil”—soil that is choked out by the cares of this world, the deceitfulness...

The 2m Radius Challenge [ 1 min read ★ ] Now, therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways—Haggai 1:5 God loves us with fierceness and tenderness. The scope of his love is shocking. It’s infinite, in fact—because he is. It burns bright and hot...

Four Stages of Faith and Conversion Scripture reminds us that faith and conversion are not just moments but a journey. There are at least four stages of faith and conversion, but I will hit on that later. The psalmist writes, “He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake” (Psalm...

Will AI Replace the Classroom Teacher? Imagining the Future of Education (AI Overview: copied and pasted 08/02/2025) While AI tools are rapidly developing and being integrated into education, they are unlikely to completely replace teachers in the classroom. AI can assist educators with...

Messin’ With Your Heroes [ 1 min read ★ ] Therefore be imitators of God—Ephesians 5:1 Really? Is it so wrong for us to emulate the life of another man or woman? Is it so wrong to hold another person up, as a role model? Well, the answer is (as it often is) . ...

When Your Wife is a Bully I received a message on Facebook this morning from a man who is suffering in secret. He is part of a large-but-invisible fraternity to which he never wanted to be a member. He’s among the countless men who feel bullied or abused by their wives. My wife Ashley and I...

6 Things to Try Before Giving Up On Your Marriage We’ve long understood the pain and perils of relationships characterized by physical and emotional abuse. The toxic and often tragic consequences of abuse between couples are as wide ranging as they are reprehensible. However, there is another...