Guarding Your Heart

The oft-given advice to “Follow your heart” may rank among the worst popular concepts in history. It encourages selfishness, eliminates standards, and eschews guidance. It treats desire as a virtue and personal experience as truth. While Postmodernism has created an entire culture around this, its existence predates the modern era by millennia. In fact, Eve…

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Which Way Do You Lean?

In the earliest days of sports in America, hand-eye coordination and natural athleticism ruled the day. That does not mean that athletes did not train or prepare—competitors did that even in the ancient world—but rather that they focused solely on improving themselves. In many individualized sports, this remains the focus. However, in a number of…

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Discernment: A Forgotten Virtue

Since at least the end of World War II, American society has emphasized education as the path to success. This likely grew out of the practical experience of the Great Depression, as countless workers lost jobs and seemed at the mercy of their more educated counterparts. However, over time, the American system of higher education—whether…

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Listening Skills

The age of the Internet has produced almost endless means to disseminate information to the masses. A teenager with a smartphone can reach the world in much the same way as an experienced journalist, politician, or artist does. Anyone can write a blog, create a series of videos, post newsworthy events, comment on world affairs,…

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In Dust and Ashes

For most people, the book of Job records the account of one of the most patient men who ever lived. He endured the loss of his children, his wealth, and his health, and yet he refused to curse God and would not be bullied into saying that he deserved all of this for some sin,…

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A Not-So-Mythical Creature

When the LORD spoke out of the whirlwind to Job, He humbled him by asking a series of questions about creation that demonstrated God’s power and man’s weakness. He spoke about the various ways in which the weather demonstrated His strength and control. Then He began describing powerful animals He created to demonstrate that, despite…

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A Hippopotamus It is Not

The book of Job presents a powerful account detailing the havoc God allowed Satan to wreak in one man’s life in order to demonstrate that physical circumstances can be completely unrelated to a person’s spiritual well-being. The lengthy discussion between Job and his friends provides insight into the assumptions and problems of the ancient doctrinal…

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Horsepower

Throughout the LORD’s lengthy questioning of Job, He provides numerous examples from nature to demonstrate His own power through the power of His creation. In Job 39 he includes a series of illustrations referring to various animals that we tend to take for granted. At both the beginning and ending of the Disney movie Secretariat,…

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Prepare Yourself Like a Man

Man up. Years ago, those two words could hardly constitute a sentence. The combination of a noun and a preposition simply do not have what it takes to pass grammatical muster. But then someone very clever found a way to make “man” a verb too. Man up. The phrase may be of recent invention, but…

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Great Things We Cannot Comprehend

The technological advancement made possible by modern science boggles the mind. The information available at our fingertips on a smartphone we take for granted, despite how brief a time we have enjoyed this technology. Rarely do we consider that we now hold in the palm of our hands far more computing power than what put…

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