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Here are some helpful articles I've read over the past few days, perhaps they will be a blessing to you too...

Home Alone: The Lies that Tie Us to Our Phones

"The same device that connects us with people all over the world alienates us from those just across the room. It’s the in-home home-wrecker. The trade-offs are pretty silly when we stop and look up long enough to weigh them. We trade the needs in front of us, the meaningful conversation with our spouse or children, the opportunity to truly know and be known, and for what?"

Similarly, here are some eerie photographs of people with their smartphones photoshopped out of the picture.

Positive Purity

"Do you see it? Sexual purity is not ultimately about what to avoid, but what to pursue and what to enjoy. It’s about putting those old and ugly behaviors to death in order to free yourself to pursue the better ones. God wants to free you from sin so you can enjoy his gifts. God’s purity is a positive purity."

Can the Devil Read My Mind? 

"A similar question would be, Can Satan be at more than one place at a time? I would be inclined to say no. I doubt that in my lifetime I will ever have to worry about Satan reading my mind, because I will probably never meet him. He can only be in one place at one time. He’s a creature, and creatures by definition are limited spatially and temporally. So Satan cannot be at more than one place at a time. He has all his little junior assistants, and he might send one of them to harass me and to tempt you and accuse you, but he’s going to save his time and energy for people of greater influence than me."

We Need to Talk About Submission

"I find myself surprised when someone speaks in a straightforward manner of the God-ordained role of a wife to lovingly support and submit to her husband (who has his own God-ordained expectations as he submits to Christ). Increasingly, it seems, the subject is deemed unfit for polite conversation, even among believers — even from the pulpit.

Perhaps as a woman, this should please me. The further we drift from talk of submission, the easier my life becomes. With tacit agreement that this is hard, outdated, and maybe even unfair, I am free to embrace a measure of leadership, assertiveness, and other “natural gifts” in my home.

But as a follower of Christ, my desire is to see Jesus glorified, not my flesh. And submission is tied directly to the glory and honor due to our Lord and his word. The dialogue may not be replete with “amens,” but here are three reasons we need to talk unapologetically about submission."