Here is a collection of good reads gathered from across the internet this past week. Enjoy!
On happiness: God Wants You to Find Your Happy Place (an interview with Randy Alcorn)
Something would be terribly wrong if we weren’t grieving for this world and those who suffer. But is it okay to be happy when we live in a world of hurt? And beyond that, is it actually God’s calling? Because if God commands us to rejoice, he must empower us to rejoice. He must want us to be happy. That’s what got me interested in God’s happiness. Is God happy? Can he be happy when he sees so much sin in the world, when he knows what his Son endured on his behalf, when he sees the persecution of his people? Can we? Clearly, the answer is yes. (click here to read more)
On singleness and prayer: Nine Prayers for the Not Yet Married by Marshall Segal
Singleness can be a long, lonely, and confusing road, especially when it’s unwanted. Through most of my twenties, I felt like I was born wanting to be married. God finally gave me a wife a little more than a year ago, but not before walking with me through a winding decade of temptation and sometimes failure, of waiting, wanting, and wondering why not yet. (click here to read more)
On adoption: Adoption: God’s Glorious “Plan A” by Laura Wifler
The longer I’ve known Christ, the more I’ve seen the ugliness of my sin. As I study and learn from him, the more holy, sacred and perfect he becomes— and the more I understand my desperate need for a Savior. And as his righteousness is revealed, I become more broken in sorrow yet overflowing with insatiable joy for what he has done for me. That he would make me — a flawed, undeserving, rebellious, unattractive human — his daughter with all the same rights and inheritance as his Son, is, well, just plain mind-boggling to me. There is no reason God should have loved me, but he did. He redeemed me. He reconciled me to himself and restored me to be a part of his family.
And that, my very own story of redemption, right there — that is adoption. And the day I fully grasped this, was the day we began the process to adopt two children from Eastern Europe. (click here to read more)
On church attendance and membership: 3 Quick Questions Before Quitting Your Church by Tim Challies
Here’s the first question: Have you been praying for the people of this church? Your love for others grows in direction proportion to your prayer for them. As you pray for people, you find that you love them. You are called to pray for your enemies in the hope that they will become your brothers and sisters and for strangers in the hope that they will become your friends. How much more, then, are you to pray for your fellow church members? (click here to read more)
First Baptist Church 