Rick Warren's Blog, page 589

Marriage Should Create a Safe Place for Kids

Studies have shown that if children grow up without a mom and dad, there���s increased risk that they���re going to fail in school. Kids without two parents are more likely to not graduate from college, to be involved in substance or alcohol abuse, to experience depression and the risk of suicide. And it increases the risk that they will divorce or bear children outside of marriage.

God Designed Marriage So We Would Multiply

God created marriage for the multiplication of the human race. It���s how we all got here!

You are sitting where you���re sitting because a couple got together and made you. This was God���s idea. For thousands of years billions of people have come into existence because men and women got married. God populated the human planet through marriage

Marriage Is Meant for Connection

Marriage doesn���t solve your problems. Marriage does not create your problems. Marriage reveals problems. It simply magnifies what was already a problem when you were living as a single adult.

You Can Be Confident About Your Future

Someday your body is going to die, but you aren���t! Your body is going to end, but that���s not going to be the end of you. You���re going to live forever in one of two places: Heaven or Hell. They���re both real places. Your body is going to die, but you���re not going to die, because you were made to last forever.

The Best Is Yet to Come

When Kind David says, ���I will live in the house of the Lord forever��� (Psalm 23:6b NLT, second edition), he���s saying that God has prepared a place for him in Heaven.

God���s Love Is Always with You

Like goodness, God���s unfailing love follows us in life.

King David says it pursues us! Picture a parent following a little kid around and picking up after the child. When we���re struggling with hurts, habits, and hang-ups, God comes right alongside us, helping to pick up our messes and telling us that his unfailing love is always there.

God Is Working for Your Good

Even in the middle of your hurts, habits, and hang-ups, God is watching over you.

When King David says, ���Surely your goodness will pursue me,��� he���s not saying, ���Surely only good things are going to happen to me!��� He knew as well as anyone that bad things happen to good people.

Don���t Be Afraid!

What are the things you���re worried about? The election? Your health? Your bills? Your kids? Are you worried about the future? The fact is there are lots of reasons to be afraid in today���s world. But God���s promise is that, even in your darkest valleys, he is walking beside you.

How Do You Forgive?

Nearly 60 years ago, five American missionaries headed to the rainforest of the eastern Amazon in Ecuador to make a second visit to the Huaorani tribe, which anthropologists said was the most vicious, violent society on the face of the earth. They had a culture of killing, and studies showed 60 percent of the tribe died by homicide.

Forgive Because You���re Forgiven

The Bible says there are three reasons you have to let go of your past and the people who���ve hurt you, and the reasons have nothing to do with whether that person deserves it or not.