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It’s been five months since the Super Bowl, but this commercial, featuring American Paralympic swimmer Jessica Long, was by far my favorite ad shown during the game. It was transcendent.

Incredibly, it was thirteen years ago that I first shared about Alex and Brett Harris’s excellent book Do Hard Things. I’ve been in an email loop with Alex and Brett, and it’s wonderful to see God’s grace in their lives. Recently they posted a great follow-up, talking about their lives over a decade after the publication of Do Hard Things.

Pride, by its very nature, is self-focused. If we live for the purpose of celebrating our own greatness, we’ll endure small, pitiful lives. But if we focus on God’s greatness and live to serve others, then we will, in the best sense, live large.

We do not just need the individual pearls of truths; we need the string that ties them together. Without the larger picture of God’s unfolding drama of redemption, and without systematic theology, pastors are constantly throwing out pearls to people, but they have no string to put them on and hold them together, and keep them in relation to each other. 

It is simply a true statement that abortion always kills children, and it stands on its own. Believers (and prolife unbelievers too) can unite on this issue.

Not only should we listen when people happen to speak, but also we should ask them the kinds of questions that invite them to speak further and at a deeper and more personal level. I love this article by Blake Glosson, a student at Reformed Theological Seminary, about the importance of asking others thoughtful questions as a way of ministering to them and showing interest in their lives.

The name Jesus comes from the transliteration of the Greek IESOUS (pronounced ee-ay-soos; there is no J in Greek) from the Hebrew name Yeshua, which means “Yahweh saves.” No matter how it is spelled or pronounced—whether Yeshua, Yēsū, Jesus, or something else—we are told that His name is above all names, and that one day every knee in the universe will bow to Him.

Earlier this month, Paxton Smith, a graduate of the Lake Highlands High School in Dallas, Texas, set aside her approved valedictorian speech and instead spoke about abortion and the threat that Texas’s new heartbeat bill, in her view, poses to young women.

The problem is certainly not purity itself! “It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). However, it’s true that one of the weaknesses of the purity movement was the false belief that following a formula of courtship instead of dating will buy you or guarantee you a great marriage.

Based on books I’ve read, sermons I’ve heard, and conversations I’ve had, it’s clear many Christians believe that humanity’s desire for happiness was birthed in the fall and is part of the curse. Hence, the desire to be happy is often assumed to be the desire to sin. But what if our desire for happiness was a gift designed by God before sin entered the world?

When I was writing my book Giving Is the Good Life, there were some people of times past I wished I could have interviewed. One of them was Stanley Tam, whom I’d read about years earlier. I contacted a friend who’d known Stanley to find out more about his life. I was shocked by his response: “Want to talk to Stanley on the phone this Saturday?” So to my delight, I spoke with then-102-year-old Stanley Tam. 

I see no conflict or inconsistency in the statements. I believe both of them.

Despite the fact that I finished writing it in 1993, twenty-eight years ago, in the last few months, our ministry has received multiple reader responses to Deadline. I have long believed that the Holy Spirit providentially brings certain books to the fore at certain times, touching many hearts even with older books and sometimes not bestsellers.

When I look at my books in other languages on the shelf, I sometimes marvel at how far God has taken them and what lasting impact there may be even in books which have gone out of print but will fall into someone’s hands at the right time and place in the providence of God.