The 21-Day Dad’s Challenge (book review)

February 9, 2012 — Craig T. Owens

Next to being a husband, there is nothing I love more than being a Dad! I take my responsibility as a father very seriously, so that’s why I am always trying to grow in this area of my life. I just finished a 3-week journey through The 21-Day Dad’s Challenge by Carey Casey, and I am a better Dad for it.

As the name implies, this is designed to be read one day at a time over 21 days. At the end of each day’s lesson there are challenges to help Dads put into practice what they’ve just read. These challenges, I discovered, cannot be accomplished in a single day; they are intended to become lifelong habits. At the end of several of the chapters is a QR code that takes you to a short 2-minute video by Dr. Greg Smalley, who serves as a cheerleader/motivator to help Dads get moving.

I appreciated “the little things” that this book showed Dads could do right away. The principles in this book are not hard to implement, but they are simple steps that any Dad can do. At least, any Dad who wants to step up his fathering skills!

I loved it! I think lots of other Dads will too.

I am a Tyndale book reviewer.

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Thursdays With Oswald—Emotions In Christianity

February 9, 2012 — Craig T. Owens

This is a weekly series with things I’m reading and pondering from Oswald Chambers. You can read the original seed thought here, or type “Thursdays With Oswald” in the search box to read more entries.

Emotions In Christianity

      Enthusiasm means, to use the phrase of a German mystic, ‘intoxicated with God.’ … The tendency is in us all to say, ‘You must not trust in feelings’; perfectly true, but if your religion is without feeling, there is nothing in it. If you are living a life right with God, you will have feeling, most emphatically so, but you will never run the risk of basing your faith on feelings. The Christian is one who bases his whole confidence in God and His work of grace, then the emotions become the beautiful ornament of the life, not the source of it.

From Biblical Ethics

God gave us a mind, a will, and emotions. We get ourselves in trouble when we elevate one above the rest, or worse yet, deny that one of those aspects are relevant.

So I don’t say, “I will obey God when I feel like it is the right thing to do.”

Nor do I say, “This feels so good, even though it makes no sense at all.”

We obey God’s Word by faith, because it is the right thing to do, and then the feelings of joy and peace and understanding will become the beautiful ornaments of our lives.

Obedience first, and the feelings will follow.

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