Practicing Faith

Practical ideas for Christian living

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How to Increase Margin in Your Life

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It is impossible to welcome others into our lives when there is no margin. Hospitality cannot be added to already overburdened lives. Without margin, we are incapable of relational spontaneity in our neighborhood, unable to even think about planning time to spend with others. Margin is the space between our load and our limits, between […]

Taken from Next Door As It Is in Heaven copyright © 2016 by Lance Ford and Brad Brisco. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

10 Ways to Stop Saying Yes When You Should Say No

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I knew the request was unrealistic. My brain cued all the right signals for my mouth to say no. But somewhere between the sinking feeling in my heart of how this would affect my relationship with this person and the pressure of her expectations for me to agree to her request, I blurted out, “Yes, […]

photo credit: Grzegorz W. Tezycki

Lysa TerKeurst is a wife, mother of five, and president of Proverbs 31 Ministries. She is the author of several bestselling books including The Best Yes, which can be ordered in Resources.

How to Establish a Daily Prayer Practice

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A daily time of connecting to God through prayer can be invaluable for spiritual growth.  But sometimes it’s hard to find the time each day or make daily prayer time a regular habit. Here are some ideas for cultivating a daily prayer practice that will help you establish it as an integral part of your […]

Taken from Finding God in the Verbs by Jennie Isbell and J. Brent Bill.  Copyright (c) 2015 by Jennie Isbell and J. Brent Bill. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. To order a copy, go to resources.

Winning Strategies When You Lose

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Everyone loses. We lose jobs, lose promotions, lose races we relentlessly trained for. Our applications are rejected, our ideas spurned, our qualifications minimized, our performance goes unnoticed. Losing makes us feel small, insignificant, and invisible. This is why losing hurts–because it causes us to question our worth and how we have chosen to use our […]

photo credit: Dale Hanson Bourke

Halee Gray Scott is the author of Dare Mighty Things, available in Resources.

How to Choose Your Life Verse

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When circumstances batter us about and we are most prone to go off-course, a single, well-chosen Bible verse can guide us back toward the things that matter most. A “life verse” is a powerful, clarifying tool. A life verse is a short passage of Scripture that serves as a rallying cry to guide and focus […]

Taken from Simplify by Bill Hybels. Copyright 2014. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc. All rights reserved. To order a copy of this book, go to Resources.

How to ‘Fear Not’ in a Scary World

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All it takes is a few minutes of listening to the news to realize we live in a scary world. Disease, disasters, wars, and terrorism dominate the headlines almost daily But the number one command in the Bible is “fear not.” Don’t be afraid. Jesus is fairly clear in his sermon on the mountainside that […]

photo credit: Edvard Munch

Carl Medearis is author of Adventures in Saying Yes. To order, go to resources.

10 Ways to Stop Your Worry Habit

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Stop worrying about it. We’ve all heard that advice, but actually stopping those thoughts is another story. Next time you feel worry taking over your life, try these steps: 1. Recognize it Take some time to actually think about what makes you worry, how you express your worry and how destructive it is for your […]

photo credit: Dale Hanson Bourke

Amy Simpson is a life and leadership coach, an editor, a writer, and author of Anxious: Choosing Faith in a World of Worry (IVPress). To order a copy, go to Resources.

 

How to Turn Your Dreams into Reality

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Does everyone have a God-given dream? Or are only “special” people given the task to steward one? I have a growing sense that many people live with creative, Spirit-inspired ideas stirring inside their hearts but have little clue what to make of them or how to develop them. These aren’t only gifted entrepreneurs or Type-A […]

photo credit: Dale Hanson Bourke
Beth Booram is a spiritual director and author of Start Something New, which can be ordered in resources.

Don’t Let the Devil Make You Do It

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The idea of an actual devil strikes many people as odd and outdated. The popular trend of our day is to blame problems on genetics, governments, and environments. Yet the Bible presents a real and present foe of our faith. His name is Satan. He is not the cute and harmless character of the cartoons. […]

photo credit: Hieronymus Bosch
Excerpted from Glory Days by Max Lucado. © 2015 by Max Lucado. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson. www.thomasnelson.com To order a copy go to resources.

Growing Spiritual Roots in Your Neighborhood

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Something in all of us wants to be connected to a place and the people who live in it. Those in our neighborhood and city are longing for it. I believe God is drawing his church back to ordinary, local relationships among real neighbors, whole persons in a real context, not just far-off mission conquests. […]

photo credit: Lars Ploughmann

Taken from Staying is the New Going copyright © 2015 by Alan Briggs. Used by permission of  NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.