After responding to the article on the autonomy of local churches at The Christian Watershed, I am happy to commend to you this article at the same site.

On being like Athanasius:

We need a modern-day Athanasius; we need many people to act like an Athanasius in their own communities. We need Christians who are willing to stand on the orthodox principles of the faith even when it costs them personally…

But all of this begins with studying the orthodox tenets of the faith. If we don’t know our faith then how can we stand up for it? Athanasius was able to defend the faith because he understood the faith and he understood the implications. Likewise, he did not defend the faith so he could make a name for himself. He did not defend the faith so he could get a nice book deal that would bring in money. He did not defend the faith so people would be in awe of his knowledge. Instead, he defended the faith because he loved God. He learned the faith because he loved God.

And, coincidentally, if you are interested in learning more about some of the great Christian thinkers of the past, as well as simply understanding the Christian faith, I commend this study to you as well.

If you are a woman, I recommend the girltalk blog as a helpful resource.

This post, in particular, is encouraging to mothers of young children.  But it is also quite helpful to the rest of us as well.

Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”  In light of this,

The harvest won’t come today. And it won’t come tomorrow. Maybe not even next year or the year after that.

But we must be faithful to sow today. Faithful to train. Faithful to teach. Faithful to discipline. Faithful to love. Or, as it says in this passage, faithful to “do good.” And we must trust God that He will fulfill His promises, that we will reap a harvest in due season if we do not give up.

My expectations are not for today, or even tomorrow–but my hope is in God who has promised that, someday, my labors will bear fruit for Him. Even though my body is weary, my soul gains new strength from this promise.

This is indeed encouragement not just to mothers, but to all of us.

There’s a great post at Kevin DeYoung’s blog, called “Our History Explains Something and Causes Nothing.”  It struck me because it gets right to the heart of some questions I’ve been asked and conversations I’ve had recently with people wondering how to help those who need encouragement or inspiration to move beyond their present circumstances.  It is worth another post to dissect this a bit more fully and discuss the idea of encouragement and inspiration in greater detail, but this particular article addresses an important and related issue. Namely, what do we tell wounded people?

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