Faith & Culture

The artificial intelligence community just waved goodbye to yet another top safety and regulation official — and he offers a unique angle in his warning to the world.

David Robinson had been leading safety reports for OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Robinson resigned in the first week of October, stating that the industry’s approach to safety has been stemming from a broken culture. He penned the following words in a piece for The Atlantic, which contain more truth than perhaps he even knows: “The future depends on wisdom that Silicon Valley lacks.”

We’ll come back to that.

His departure comes on the heels of several other prominent AI safety researchers abandoning the industry. Their exits have paired with dreadful public warnings about the future of this technology, leaving the American people to grapple with the headlines and the unknown.

Take Jacob Coxon, for example. After leaving Claude developer Anthropic in September, he wrote on X that top tech labs are “gambling with our lives” by racing toward self-improving superintelligence. He went on to reveal that the people building AI “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

Comforting.

For clarity, the industry term “superintelligence” refers to a hypothetical AI system that developers believe could surpass humans in overall knowledge and capability. This could happen through recursive self-improvement (RSI) in which AI models design and continually improve their own successors.

While the Trump administration has taken to using the term as a reference to AI more broadly, Coxon used it as the industry intends: the potential nightmare of AI evolving beyond our ability to contain.

Let’s go back to David Robinson for a second. Beyond diagnosing the issue of a “lack of wisdom,” he went on in his article to describe the kind of wisdom that is desperately needed — the kind that shows us “how to handle dangerous technology and, more fundamentally … what it means to care for people.”

This kind of wisdom has only one source.

Proverbs 4:7 states, “The beginning of wisdom is: Acquire wisdom; And with all your acquiring, acquire understanding.” The natural question is, how can true wisdom be acquired? Well, it is not gained by happenstance or by any means of passivity.

The word of God teaches that wisdom is found only, “if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure” (Proverbs 2:4).

That same proverb states that when wisdom enters the human heart, it bears fruits of knowledge, discretion, and understanding. Knowledge is pleasant, discretion brings protection, and understanding guards the one who finds it.

If those spearheading AI labs begin searching for wisdom with the same fervency as they do innovation, capital gain, and victory in the arms race, perhaps we might reap the benefits of honing a brilliant technology for human flourishing, rather than threatening it entirely.

In the absence of wisdom, we ought not to expect flourishing. Thus, the need for appropriate guardrails toward that end is becoming increasingly dire.

Whistleblowers coming forward to expose carelessness in the industry is a good thing. Speaking up when danger is on the horizon is profitable. What is not profitable, however, is responding in fear.

The wisest man in history, King Solomon, tells us, “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

The pride of man has reared its head through the latest technology and means of production before. As soon as human beings had the chance, they took brick and mortar and built the tower of Babel, aiming to reach as high as heaven to make a name for themselves — not for the God who gave them clay, water, and sun in the first place.

Today, we are seeing the latest expression of that sinful pride: men thinking they can hold infinite knowledge without it destroying them. Casting wisdom aside, they trust in their own minds and technical ability rather than in God.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve fell to the temptation of wanting to be all-knowing, like God. He judged that decision then, and He will not be mocked now (Galatians 6:7).

There is nothing more urgent for the unbeliever than to humble themselves, fall on their knees, and cry out to the Creator for salvation. There is, likewise, nothing more urgent for the believer than to refuse every temptation to fear in these times — to live the joyful, abundant life offered to them in Christ.

It is not a suggestion to be unafraid. It is a commandment given us by God, time and time again throughout the Scriptures.

Do not stifle your witness to the watching world.

The book of Ecclesiastes warns us that there are many dark days in this life under the sun, and that we will encounter circumstances which are difficult, perplexing, and often don’t make sense. Yet, there are a few things that author King Solomon found to be good: “Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot” (Ecclesiastes 5:18).

New threats to our livelihood may come at alarming rates, but our responsibility as Christians remains the same: Do not dread the future or fear the potential of “superintelligence.” Rather, “fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

So, keep breaking bread with those you love. Keep enjoying the toil and the lot that God has given you with a grateful heart. Regardless of the news cycle, and whatever may come out of Washington and Silicon Valley — rejoice in what you have been given.

Our lives are but a vapor, a mist, Solomon says. The years go by quickly, and soon, we will return to dust.

That need not be depressing — in fact, let it be motivating as you live the most upright, joyous, and noble life possible along the way. Be encouraged, for we have all the instruction we need to please God in every circumstance, including the ones out of our control.

God says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” in Revelation 22:13. If God is the Omega just as much as He is the Alpha, what is there to fear?

At the end of all things, just as much as at the beginning — He is there. And He rules and reigns at every point in between.

Human history was born from and ends in perfect wisdom, and God will tie the final bow on our story.

Not Sam Altman, or Dario and Daniela Amodei, or Donald Trump, or Xi Jinping — but Jesus Christ will do it, who is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

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This article was written by Erica Mendel and originally published on The Washington Stand. For more content like this, visit Real Life Network.

This article is adapted from a recent episode of Rose Unplugged featuring former Congressman Louie Gohmert — a former judge who served 18 years on the House Judiciary Committee. 

Every so often, it's worth pausing to step away from the noise and lean into what's real. Right now, that means taking a hard look at two things: judges who think they answer to no one, and a culture that wants to erase the heroes who don't fit the modern mold. 

They look unrelated. They're not. They're the same problem wearing two different masks. One is a refusal of accountability. The other is a refusal of honesty. 

What Scripture Expects of a Judge 

Scripture doesn't leave the subject of judges to guesswork. In Exodus 18, when Moses is drowning in disputes, his father-in-law Jethro tells him to appoint leaders — “able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain.” 

Deuteronomy 16 goes further, instructing judges, “You shall not distort justice; you shall not be partial.” That's the standard. Fear God. Reject dishonest gain. No favoritism. No corruption. 

Now hold that up against what's happening in our own courts today — judges with undisclosed conflicts of interest, judges reportedly using AI to manufacture case law that doesn't exist, judges quietly reprimanded behind closed doors for conduct that would getanyone else fired. 

This isn't a partisan gripe. It's a bench that has drifted from “good behavior” into something Scripture would call exactly what it is — corrupt judgment. 

A Fourth, Untouchable Branch 

And this is not some abstract, inside-the-Beltway squabble. This is the unelected, unaccountable administrative state in black robes. We're talking about activist judges legislating from the bench, single district judges issuing nationwide injunctions to override the will of the American people and their duly elected president, and a judiciary that has quietly built itself into a fourth, untouchable branch of government. 

That should alarm every single one of us, regardless of party, because a Republic where judges answer to nobody isn't a Republic anymore. 

Here's what gets missed: accountability for judges isn't a modern political invention. It's baked into the oldest legal tradition we have. In 2 Chronicles 19, King Jehoshaphat appoints judges and warns them plainly, “Consider what you are doing, for you do not judge for man but for the Lord.” 

A judge was never meant to be untouchable. A judge was meant to answer to a higher standard, precisely because of the power he holds over other people's lives, liberty, and property. 

Isaiah 1 doesn't mince words either: “Learn to do good; seek justice.” Judgment is supposed to protect people, not shield the judge from consequence. When a judiciary polices itself for forty-plus years and the abuses keep piling up anyway, that bargain has failed. 

Unchecked power, whether it's sitting on a bench or rewriting a history book, doesn't correct itself. That's not cynicism. That's what

Scripture has always told us about the human heart — and it's precisely why the Founders built in checks in the first place. They didn't build three co-equal branches so that one of them could operate with zero checks. And our faith doesn't teach us that any man — king, judge, or committee — gets a permanent pass from scrutiny. 

Practicing Amnesia 

And it's not just the courtroom. We're watching the same instinct — the refusal to be honest and the refusal to be accountable — show up in how the culture treats its own history. Britain is erasing Winston Churchill from its currency because a focus group calls him “divisive.” 

This is the same woke revisionism we see here at home — knock down the statue, rename the school, cancel the man. 

But there is exactly one perfect man who ever walked the earth, and none of us are Him. Scripture is remarkably unsentimental about its own heroes. It tells you David committed adultery and had a man killed to cover it up — and still calls him a man after God's own heart. It tells you Noah got drunk, Moses disobeyed God at the rock, and Peter denied Christ three times. The Bible doesn't airbrush its heroes. It shows the whole man, flaws and all, because the point was never that these men were flawless. 

That's the opposite instinct of what we're watching happen with Churchill. Modern cancel culture wants a spotless résumé or it wants erasure. Scripture never asked us to pretend our heroes were flawless. It asks us to tell the truth about them — the good and the bad — and let the record stand. 

A nation that can't hold “Churchill saved civilization” and “Churchill had serious flaws” in the same breath isn't practicing justice. It's practicing amnesia.

Two Sides of the Same Coin 

So let's be honest about what's at stake here. This isn't about one bad ruling or one bad headline out of London. This is about whether we still believe in a Republic of laws, or whether we've quietly let ourselves drift into rule by unelected robes and unelected editors of history. 

Judges answering to no one and a culture rewriting its own history are two sides of the same coin — a slow, quiet abandonment of truth and accountability. That should matter to every conservative, every Christian, every American who still believes truth is truth regardless of what a focus group or a black robe says about it. 

If we let the judiciary and the culture police themselves without any accountability to God or to “We the People,” we will wake up one day and not recognize the country our Founders risked everything to build. As citizens, we don't get to sit this one out. This is one to lean into, not scroll past. 

A Word of Thanks 

I want to say this plainly: men like Louie Gohmert don't get nearly enough credit for the work they do long after the cameras and the Capitol Hill office are gone. Eighteen years on the House Judiciary Committee, a career on the bench himself, and he's still out there walking the halls of Congress, folder in hand, doing the unglamorous, unpaid, unnoticed work of trying to hold power accountable. That's not politics. That's public service in the truest sense of the word, and we don't say thank you for that kind of thing nearly often enough. 

Whether it's a judge who thinks he answers to no one, or a culture that thinks history should answer to a marketing survey — the answer is the same. Truth, judged rightly, doesn't need to hide from scrutiny, and it doesn't need to erase the past to feel comfortable. It just needs someone willing to say it plainly. 

So keep your faith steady, your focus clear, and keep moving forward — because you are here for such a time as this. 

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Watch or listen to the full conversation with former Congressman Louie Gohmert on Rose Unplugged: Rogue Judges, Erased History, SCOTUS Graded — Louie Gohmert Holds Nothing Back

Election Day 2026 is less than a month away, and the political conversation is intensifying.

Campaign ads are multiplying. Candidates are making their closing arguments. Social media is filling with clips, claims, endorsements, and reactions. But understanding the 2026 midterm elections requires looking beyond the daily campaign noise to the issues voters are actually being asked to consider.

Recent polling shows economic concerns, particularly affordability and the cost of living, remain especially prominent. But the November 3 election also comes amid ongoing debates about immigration, healthcare, public safety, education, abortion, foreign policy, government spending, artificial intelligence, and other questions that affect Americans differently depending on where they live.

The challenge is not simply identifying which issues are receiving attention. It is understanding how those issues connect to the candidates, offices, and measures on your own ballot.

Here are some of the major conversations to follow as Election Day 2026 approaches.

Stay informed as November 3 approaches. Sign up for America Speaks ’26 updates from Real Life Network and follow RLN for news and coverage leading into Election Day 2026.

The Economy and Cost of Living

For many Americans, the economy remains the most immediate political concern.

Housing costs, grocery prices, energy expenses, healthcare, interest rates, taxes, and job opportunities all affect household budgets. Recent national polling has found that economic issues are among the topics voters most want congressional candidates to address, with affordability receiving particular attention.

But “the economy” can mean many things during an election campaign.

One candidate may emphasize taxes. Another may focus on government spending, tariffs, housing, wages, energy policy, or regulation. State and local candidates may have authority over different economic questions than members of Congress.

As you hear competing claims, ask what specific policy is being proposed, which level of government controls it, what evidence supports the argument, and what tradeoffs may be involved.

Immigration and Border Policy

Immigration remains an important issue in the 2026 elections, even as voter attention has shifted toward affordability and other economic concerns.

The debate includes border security, deportation and enforcement policies, asylum, legal immigration, the workforce, federal-state responsibilities, and the treatment of people already living in the United States.

Republican and Democratic candidates often approach these questions differently, but positions can also vary considerably within the same party.

Instead of relying only on campaign language, look at what candidates specifically support. Are they addressing border enforcement, legal immigration, employment rules, asylum policy, or some combination? What authority would the office they are seeking actually have over those questions?

Broad slogans can conceal important policy differences.

Healthcare and the Cost of Care

Healthcare continues to be both a national and household issue.

Voters may hear debates involving insurance premiums, the Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid, prescription drugs, hospital costs, federal subsidies, and the role of government in healthcare.

Candidates may agree that medical care costs too much while offering very different explanations for why and very different proposals for addressing it.

Healthcare can also intersect with state elections because states make significant decisions involving Medicaid, insurance regulation, public health, and medical policy.

When evaluating campaign claims, look beyond promises to lower costs and ask how a proposed change would work, who would be affected, and how it would be funded.

Public Safety, Crime, and the Role of Government

Public safety is another issue that can look very different depending on the race.

Federal candidates may discuss immigration enforcement, gun laws, federal law enforcement, drug trafficking, or national crime policy. State and local candidates may focus on policing, prosecution, sentencing, homelessness, drug policy, or funding for first responders.

Those distinctions matter. A city council member, county prosecutor, governor, and U.S. senator do not have the same responsibilities. Before evaluating a candidate’s promises about crime or public safety, determine what the office can realistically influence.

Local crime statistics and policies may also provide a more useful picture of conditions in your community than national political rhetoric.

Education and Questions Facing Families

Education remains a significant issue in many state and local elections. Debates can involve academic standards, school funding, parental involvement, curriculum, school choice, teacher recruitment, student achievement, sports policies, religious expression, and the role of state and federal government in education.

For Christian families, these questions can carry particular significance because they touch on parental responsibility, religious liberty, the formation of children, and competing understandings of human identity.

But education policy is highly decentralized. A position debated nationally may actually be decided by a state legislature, governor, local school board, or district administrator. Before assuming a national talking point applies directly to your community, identify who makes the relevant decision.

Abortion and State Policy

Abortion remains a significant issue in American elections, particularly because much of the legal and policy debate now takes place at the state level.

Voters may encounter candidates with sharply different positions on abortion restrictions, exceptions, funding, access, parental involvement, and related healthcare questions. Some states may also have ballot measures addressing abortion policy directly.

For Christian voters, questions surrounding unborn life carry deep moral significance. Other voters approach the issue through different legal, medical, or individual-rights frameworks.

Research what candidates and ballot measures would actually change under existing law rather than relying solely on campaign descriptions from either side.

Foreign Policy and National Security

International events are also influencing the 2026 political conversation.

Wars and conflicts abroad, relations with China and other global powers, U.S. military involvement, defense spending, trade, alliances, Israel and the Middle East, and America’s role overseas are all subjects candidates may address.

Foreign policy can also connect directly to domestic concerns. International conflicts may affect energy prices, trade, government spending, military families, and the broader economy.

Members of Congress have meaningful responsibilities involving military authorization, funding, sanctions, and foreign policy oversight, while presidents retain substantial executive authority.

As candidates discuss international events, consider not only the desired outcome but also what powers the office actually possesses.

Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Energy

Artificial intelligence has become a more visible political issue in 2026. Questions include job displacement, privacy, misinformation, data-center construction, energy consumption, regulation, national security, and America’s competitiveness in emerging technologies.

Some communities are encountering these debates locally as new data centers and infrastructure projects raise questions about electricity use, water, zoning, and development.

AI may not rank as highly as the economy or immigration for many voters, but it illustrates why election research should extend beyond the most familiar political topics. New technologies can quickly create policy questions at the federal, state, and local levels.

Go Beyond the Campaign Headline

The issues receiving the most attention nationally will not necessarily be the most important issues on every ballot.

A congressional candidate may be debating foreign policy while your state is considering a major tax measure. A governor’s race may center on education or housing. Your local races may involve public safety, development, school policy, or government spending.

That is why the most useful question as Election Day 2026 approaches is not simply, What issues are dominating the news?

Ask: What decisions will the people and measures on my ballot actually affect?

Then research accordingly.

Read candidates’ own positions, but compare them with voting records, public statements, primary documents, and reliable reporting. Look at arguments from more than one perspective. Distinguish facts from predictions and campaign claims from independent evidence.

For Christians, this is also an opportunity to consider public issues through a biblical worldview while recognizing that applying broad biblical principles to specific policy choices often requires careful thought.

Follow Election News with Real Life Network

The final weeks before November 3 will bring more campaign claims, breaking news, debates, and political commentary.

Real Life Network offers news and current-events programming designed to help viewers follow important developments through a biblical worldview, including RLN News, The Daniel Cohen Show, Rose Unplugged, Cure America, and other programs addressing faith, culture, and public life.

As Election Day approaches, RLN will also be preparing for America Speaks ’26: Election Night Live, bringing together live election results, updates, and conversation from races across the country.

The goal is not simply to follow who wins and loses. It is to understand the issues shaping those results and why they matter.

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Stay informed as November 3 approaches. Sign up for America Speaks ’26 updates from Real Life Network and follow RLN for news and coverage leading into Election Day 2026.

National races dominate election coverage, but some of the decisions that affect your daily life may appear much farther down the ballot.

The 2026 midterm elections on November 3 will determine control of the U.S. House and affect the makeup of the Senate, but voters across the country will also encounter state legislative races, governors’ contests, county and city offices, judges, school boards, and ballot measures.

That is why researching the 2026 ballot should involve more than recognizing a few names from national television.

If you are beginning to ask, “What’s on my ballot in 2026?”, the next step is to understand the different kinds of races and measures you may encounter and know what questions to ask about each one.

Start With the Full Ballot, Not Just the Headline Races

Most voters hear far more about Congress than they do about county government, school boards, judges, or local ballot initiatives.

That imbalance can make the bottom half of a ballot feel unfamiliar.

Before Election Day, take time to review the ballot information published for your jurisdiction and identify every race and measure that will require a decision. Instead of trying to research everything at once, make a list and work through it category by category.

Depending on where you live, that list may include:

• U.S. House and Senate races
• Governor or other statewide offices
• State legislative races
• County and municipal offices
• Judges or judicial retention questions
• School board races
• State constitutional amendments
• Local tax, bond, or policy measures

Some may receive extensive news coverage. Others may receive almost none. Lack of national attention does not make a race unimportant.

Understand What Each Office Actually Does

Candidate research becomes much more useful when you understand the responsibilities of the position being sought.

A candidate for Congress will deal with very different questions from a city council member. A governor has different authority from a state legislator. School board members, county officials, judges, and local prosecutors each operate within their own responsibilities.

Before comparing candidates, ask:

What authority does this office actually have?

That simple question can cut through a surprising amount of campaign rhetoric.

Candidates sometimes make promises involving issues their office has little power to change. Understanding the role itself helps voters evaluate whether campaign claims are realistic and whether the issues being emphasized actually belong within that office’s responsibilities.

Research Candidates Beyond Their Campaign Ads

Campaign websites are useful because they tell you what candidates want voters to know about them. They should not be your only source, however.

Compare campaign statements with interviews, public records, reliable local reporting, debate appearances, previous votes when applicable, and other primary-source material.

Useful questions include:

• What issues does the candidate identify as priorities?
• What specific policies does the candidate support?
• Has the candidate previously held public office?
• If so, what does that record show?
• What experience does the candidate bring to the position?
• Does the candidate explain how proposed policies would work?
• Are major claims about an opponent supported by evidence?

Party affiliation can provide some information about a candidate’s general political alignment, whether Republican, Democrat, independent, or another affiliation. But it does not substitute for researching the individual candidate.

Two candidates from the same party can differ substantially on priorities, policies, governing style, or experience.

Pay Particular Attention to State and Local Races

Local elections often receive less attention than congressional races, even though state and local officials can make decisions that affect people directly.

State legislators may vote on taxes, education, criminal law, business regulation, healthcare policy, and state spending. Local officials can influence public safety, development, transportation, housing, budgets, and other community priorities.

School boards may make decisions involving curriculum, district policies, budgets, and administration.

That makes local elections in 2026 worth researching with the same seriousness as races that generate national headlines.

Local journalism can be particularly valuable here because local reporters often cover candidate forums, controversies, voting records, and community concerns that never reach national media.

Don’t Skip the Ballot Measures

Candidates are not the only part of the November 3 election.

Many voters will also be asked to decide ballot measures involving state or local law. These could include constitutional amendments, taxes, bonds, public spending, criminal justice questions, government structure, education, or other policy matters.

Ballot-measure campaigns often reduce complicated proposals to memorable slogans.

Go deeper.

Read the actual proposal or an official summary. Understand what changes if it passes and what remains in place if it does not. Look at arguments from both supporters and opponents, but also distinguish campaign claims from what the measure itself would legally do.

A useful research checklist is:

What does the measure change?
Who or what would be affected?
What would it cost?
How would it be implemented?
Am I willing to pay increased taxes for this measure?
What are supporters arguing?
What are opponents arguing?
Which claims can be independently verified?

The wording may take a little more time to understand, but that time can be well spent.

Separate News Reporting from Political Persuasion

By the final weeks of an election, voters can be surrounded by campaign ads, fundraising emails, social posts, endorsements, commentary, and viral videos.

Those sources may contain useful information, but they also have a purpose.

A campaign ad exists to persuade you. So does a political action committee advertisement. An endorsement tells you what another person or organization wants you to conclude.

That does not make those materials worthless. It simply means they should be recognized for what they are.

Whenever possible, compare persuasive claims against original documents, direct quotations, voting records, full interviews, official reports, and reporting from multiple sources.

Proverbs 18:17 says, “The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him” (NKJV). That principle is especially useful during an election season.

Ask How the Issues Affect Your Community

National political conversations can sometimes obscure what an election means closer to home.

A question about education, public safety, taxation, housing, religious liberty, healthcare, or economic policy may look different depending on the state, district, or community involved.

As you research state and local elections, ask how the major issues being discussed connect to the actual offices and measures on your ballot. Which decisions are made federally? Which belong to your state? Which are controlled locally?

Understanding that distinction makes political research more useful and helps prevent national rhetoric from overshadowing the decisions voters are actually being asked to consider.

Christians Can Approach Election Research with Discernment

For Christian voters, becoming informed is part of taking civic responsibility seriously.

That does not require assuming that every believer will make identical political choices. It does mean approaching candidates and policies thoughtfully rather than allowing a party label, celebrity endorsement, social media clip, or campaign advertisement to make the decision for you.

Research what candidates actually believe and have done. Examine policy proposals carefully. Consider how the issues intersect with biblical convictions about human dignity, justice, truth, freedom, family, stewardship, and care for others.

And recognize the difference between biblical principles and political messaging that simply borrows Christian terminology.

Discernment requires more than hearing what you already agree with.

Know Your Ballot Before November 3

The closer Election Day gets, the louder the political conversation will become.

Researching early gives you time to move at a different pace.

Start with the races and measures that will affect your own community. Understand what each office does. Compare candidates. Examine ballot measures. Check campaign claims against reliable information. Then continue following the larger national stories shaping the 2026 midterms.

Local knowledge and national awareness belong together.

Stay Informed with Real Life Network

Real Life Network will continue following the news, cultural conversations, and major issues shaping the 2026 elections as November 3 approaches.

Then on Election Night, America Speaks ’26: Election Night Live will bring viewers live results, updates, conversation, and biblical perspective on races and issues from across the country.

Stay informed locally and nationally. Sign up for America Speaks ’26 updates from Real Life Network as Election Day 2026 approaches.

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At a Glance

Three years after Hamas launched its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the consequences still reach far beyond that terrible morning. The attack rocked assumptions about Israeli security, began a prolonged hostage crisis, reshaped the Middle East, and contributed to a dramatic rise in antisemitism around the world.

• About 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led attack, and 251 were taken hostage.
• Civilians were murdered in their homes, communities, and at the Nova music festival.
• The final 20 Israeli hostages known to be alive were released in October 2025 as part of a ceasefire agreement.
• Antisemitism remains far above pre-October 7 levels in the United States and other parts of the world.
• For Christians, the anniversary is a time to remember the victims, reject antisemitism and terrorism, and pray for Israel and lasting peace.

At sunrise on October 7, 2023, Israel was a very different country from the one that would exist by nightfall. Hamas-led attackers breached the border from Gaza, striking Israeli communities, military positions, and the Nova music festival. Approximately 1,200 people were killed, most of them civilians, and 251 people were abducted into Gaza.

What happened during those hours was horrific, but the significance of October 7 cannot be measured only by what occurred that day. Three years later, its effects are still being felt across Israel, throughout the Middle East, on American campuses, and in Jewish communities around the world.

October 7 became a dividing line: before and after.

October 7 Rocked Israel’s Sense of Security

Israel has lived with terrorism and war throughout its modern history, but October 7 exposed vulnerabilities on a scale few Israelis had imagined possible. Communities near Gaza that had lived for years with rocket fire suddenly faced armed attackers inside their neighborhoods. Families hid in safe rooms while gunmen moved nearby, and in some communities, military help took hours to arrive.

The shock went far beyond the immediate loss of life. Israel has long faced the reality of terrorism and hostile forces seeking its destruction, but October 7 demonstrated the extraordinary lengths Hamas was willing to go to target Israeli civilians. The attack permanently changed the country’s understanding of the threats along its borders and intensified the determination to prevent anything like October 7 from happening again.

The Hostages Became a National Wound

Among the most enduring images after October 7 were the faces of the hostages. Posters appeared around the world. Families spoke publicly about loved ones ranging from children to elderly grandparents. Israelis gathered in what became known as Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, calling for their return.

The hostage crisis lasted two years. Some captives were released through agreements, others were rescued, and some died in captivity or were killed on October 7 and their bodies taken into Gaza. In October 2025, the remaining 20 Israeli hostages known to be alive were released as part of a ceasefire agreement.

Their return closed one chapter of October 7, but it did not erase what captivity had done to the hostages, their families, or Israeli society. The ordeal reinforced something terrorism is designed to accomplish: creating fear and trauma that continue long after an attack ends.

Remember the People, Not Just the Date

Three years later, October 7 risks becoming a shorthand phrase for a war, a political argument, or a date in a timeline. But before it became any of those things, it was a human tragedy.

The people murdered that day were parents, grandparents, children, soldiers, young adults, foreign workers, and visitors. Some were killed inside their homes. Others were attacked while trying to escape. At the Nova music festival, young people who had gathered for a night of music found themselves running for their lives.

Remembering October 7 means refusing to let those lives disappear inside statistics or political debate. It means remembering the families who still live with empty chairs, the survivors who carry lasting trauma, and the communities that were forever changed in a matter of hours.

Romans 12:15 tells believers to “weep with those who weep.” On this anniversary, remembrance is one way of doing exactly that.

The Attack Reshaped the Middle East

October 7 did not remain a conflict between Israel and Hamas. The war reverberated throughout the region, increasing tensions involving Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran, the Houthis in Yemen, and other armed groups. Governments reconsidered security relationships, diplomatic efforts changed course, and long-standing regional conflicts became increasingly interconnected.

The war also brought terrible loss and destruction to Palestinian civilians in Gaza, a reality that can be acknowledged without minimizing what happened to Israelis on October 7 or excusing the actions of Hamas.

The October 2025 ceasefire stopped the largest phase of fighting between Israel and Hamas and brought the remaining living hostages home, but it did not resolve the deeper questions surrounding Gaza’s future, Israeli security, Hamas, or future peace. Three years after the attack, those questions remain unsettled.

Jewish Life Changed Far Beyond Israel

October 7 also changed life for Jewish communities thousands of miles from the Middle East. In the United States, antisemitic harassment, vandalism, threats, and violence rose sharply after the attack and the war that followed.

Jewish Americans who had nothing to do with the decisions of Israel’s government found themselves confronted over events thousands of miles away. Synagogues increased security. Jewish students faced hostility on campuses. Demonstrations sometimes crossed the line from political criticism into explicit anti-Jewish rhetoric or threats.

That distinction matters. In the years since October 7, critics of Israel’s conduct have argued that its military response was disproportionate or caused unacceptable harm to Palestinian civilians. Those policies and military decisions can be debated, and criticism of the Israeli government is not automatically antisemitic. But holding Jewish people collectively responsible for Israel’s response, repeating antisemitic conspiracies, threatening Jewish institutions, or excusing violence against Jews crosses a very different line.

October 7 exposed how quickly an ancient hatred can reappear.

Christians Should Remember, Reject Hatred, and Pray

For Christians, the anniversary of October 7 should be more than a marker on the calendar. It is an opportunity to remember those who were murdered, honor the survivors and families still carrying the weight of that day, and stand firmly against the terrorism and antisemitism that helped make such atrocities possible.

The anniversary also calls Christians to resist allowing political arguments to overshadow the human reality of what happened. Terrorism must be condemned for what it is, antisemitism must be rejected wherever it appears, and the suffering of those affected by October 7 should move believers toward compassion rather than political point-scoring.

The anniversary is also a time to pray. Psalm 122:6 says, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” Pray for Israel, for those still living with trauma and loss, for Jewish communities facing antisemitism, for leaders making difficult decisions, and for a lasting peace that protects innocent life and restrains those who seek violence.

Remembering October 7 should move Christians toward truth, compassion, courage, and prayer.

Three Years Later, the Story Is Still Unfinished

October 7 is moving further into history, but its consequences are still unfolding. Israel continues to confront the threat of terrorism and the challenge of protecting its citizens in an increasingly volatile region. Families are still living with trauma and loss. Jewish communities around the world remain alert to antisemitism that intensified after the attack. And leaders throughout the Middle East continue to confront questions of terrorism, diplomacy, regional stability, and peace.

The attack also changed relationships and assumptions across the region in ways that are still developing. Questions surrounding Hamas, Gaza’s future, Iran and its proxies, Israel’s borders, and the possibility of lasting regional peace remain unresolved.

Three years later, October 7 remains a turning point whose consequences continue to shape Israel and the Middle East. Remembering what happened matters, but so does understanding how that day continues to influence what comes next.

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Follow developments in Israel, the Middle East, and around the world through a biblical worldview on The Daniel Cohen Show and RLN News, streaming free on Real Life Network.

Election Day 2026 is approaching, and much of the attention will naturally fall on the biggest national races, political personalities, and questions about which party will control Congress. But your ballot will likely have much more on it than that.

The 2026 midterm elections on November 3 include races for the U.S. House and Senate alongside elections for governors, state legislators, local officials, judges, and ballot measures across the country. What appears on your ballot will depend on where you live, which is why preparing for Election Day should begin closer to home.

Rather than waiting until the final days of the campaign, now is the time to find out what you will actually be voting on, research the candidates and issues, and understand the decisions facing your community.

What Are the 2026 Midterm Elections?

Midterm elections take place halfway through a president’s four-year term. There is no presidential race on the ballot, but voters will decide who represents them in Congress and, in many states, choose governors, state lawmakers, and other officials.

Every seat in the U.S. House of Representatives is part of the 2026 election cycle, along with roughly one-third of the U.S. Senate. Many states are also holding gubernatorial and state legislative elections.

That means the November 3 election could affect decisions made at nearly every level of government, from Washington, D.C., to your state capitol, county, city, and school district.

National coverage can help explain the larger political picture, but it cannot tell you everything you need to know about your own ballot.

Start by Finding Out What’s on Your Ballot

Before researching who or what to support, begin with a simpler question:

What’s on my ballot in 2026?

A sample ballot can show you the races, candidates, and ballot measures that will appear when you vote. Depending on where you live, that could include:

• U.S. House and Senate races
• Governor and other statewide offices
• State legislature
• County and city offices
• Judges
• School board or other local offices
• State and local ballot measures

Some of these races may receive very little television or national news coverage even though the people elected will make decisions that directly affect your community.

Your state or local election office is a good starting place for identifying what will appear on your ballot. Once you know the races and measures involved, you can research them one by one rather than trying to absorb everything happening in the 2026 elections at once.

Don’t Stop With the Biggest Races

It is easy to know the names of candidates running for Congress or governor while knowing almost nothing about the other contests further down the ballot.

Yet state and local officials make decisions involving education, public safety, taxes, land use, transportation, budgets, business regulations, and many other issues that affect everyday life.

Ballot measures can matter just as much. Depending on your state or community, voters may be asked to decide questions involving taxes, bonds, constitutional amendments, criminal justice, education, election rules, or other public policies.

The wording can sometimes be complicated, so don’t wait until Election Day to read a measure for the first time.

Find out what is on the ballot, read the actual proposal, and look beyond campaign slogans from both supporters and opponents.

Research Candidates Beyond Party Labels

Political affiliation tells you something about a candidate, but it does not tell you everything.

Whether a candidate is Republican, Democrat, independent, or affiliated with another party, look at the person’s record and stated positions. Visit campaign websites, read interviews, examine public statements, and consider reliable reporting about previous votes or public service.

Questions worth researching include:

• What issues does the candidate emphasize?
• What policies has the candidate supported?
• What has the candidate done in previous public office?
• How does the candidate describe the responsibilities of the position?
• Do independent sources confirm the claims being made by the campaign or its opponents?

Campaign advertisements and social media posts are designed to persuade. Research should go further.

Proverbs 18:17 offers a useful principle: “The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him” (NKJV). Hearing a claim is only the beginning. Informed citizens take time to examine it.

Pay Attention to the Issues Behind the Campaigns

Candidates often dominate election coverage, but elections are also about policy.

As November 3 approaches, national conversations will continue around issues such as the economy, immigration, public safety, education, foreign policy, religious liberty, government spending, healthcare, energy, and other concerns. State and local races may bring additional issues to the forefront.

The most useful question is not simply, What is everyone talking about? Ask instead: How does this issue connect to the choices on my ballot?

A national debate may have very different implications in a congressional race, a governor’s race, a state legislative contest, or a local ballot measure.

Understanding that connection helps turn election news into useful information rather than another stream of political noise.

Christian Voters Should Be Informed Voters

For Christians, civic participation provides an opportunity to approach public questions thoughtfully and responsibly.

That does not mean every Christian will reach the same conclusion about every candidate or public policy. It does mean believers can take the responsibility seriously enough to learn what they are voting on, examine competing claims, and consider political questions in light of their biblical convictions.

Being informed also means resisting the temptation to let a viral clip, political personality, favorite commentator, or party label do all the thinking for you.

Ask questions. Check sources. Read more than headlines. Understand both the office and the candidate seeking it. And pray for wisdom.

National Headlines Are Only Part of the 2026 Election Story

Election Night will be filled with major congressional contests and closely watched races around the country. Those results matter. But so does the race that may never appear on national television.

The November 3 election is national, state, and local at the same time. Your ballot may include choices that affect who writes federal laws, who leads your state, who represents your community, and what policies take effect where you live.

Preparing now gives you time to understand those decisions before campaign advertising and breaking-news coverage reach their peak.

Find your sample ballot. Make a list of the races and measures you need to investigate. Research candidates from multiple reliable sources. Learn what the offices actually do. Then keep following the broader election picture as November approaches.

Follow the 2026 Elections with Real Life Network

As Election Day draws closer, Real Life Network will be following the issues, conversations, and races shaping the country.

Then on Tuesday, November 3, RLN will present America Speaks ’26: Election Night Live, with live election results, updates, commentary, and conversation. Coverage will follow major races both in California and across the country, with biblical perspective from Pastor Jack Hibbs, analysis from Daniel Cohen, and insight from other Real Life Network voices.

Election Night coverage begins at 8 PM ET / 5 PM PT and is free to watch with a Real Life Network account.

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Stay informed as Election Day approaches. Sign up for America Speaks ’26 updates from Real Life Network and be ready to follow Election Night live on November 3.

Adapted from a recent Rose Unplugged podcast conversation with Marc Morano of Climate Depot. Watch the full episode: Here

We are watching something shift that many people were told would never shift. For years, the message was simple, absolute, and repeated everywhere: the science is settled, the timeline is urgent, and the consequences are existential.

Climate change was not presented as one issue among many. It was presented as the issue. The defining crisis of our time. And for a long stretch, questioning that framing was treated not as disagreement, but as denial.

But now, something is happening that is difficult to ignore.

The Quieting

Major political outlets are describing what they call “climate hushing”. It’s a noticeable quieting from Democrats and environmental groups at the very moment we were told urgency should be at its peak. Media voices and political strategists are openly admitting that climate messaging is no longer resonating with voters the way it once did.

And a very uncomfortable conversation is emerging inside mainstream reporting: that some of the most extreme climate scenarios that shaped headlines, policy, and public fear were never truly forecasts at all, but worst-case modeling that was often presented without that distinction being made clear to the public.

Now those same scenarios are being reconsidered. Recalibrated. In some cases, quietly set aside.

Meanwhile, at the Kitchen Table

At the same time, there is another layer to this story that can’t be ignored. Because while elites debate messaging strategies, ordinary families are dealing with something far more immediate. They are dealing with rising costs, energy insecurity, and food prices, and with the reality that policies sold as “saving the planet” often land first and hardest on working people.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I think a lot of people are just trying to live their lives and make sense of it all. Some climate activists say we’re destroying the planet if we eat meat. Vox, for example, has warned that beef is among the worst foods we consume when it comes to global warming. My only request is this: just do not take my steak away from me while you’re all figuring it out. I. Mean. It.

There’s something very human about that reaction. People can debate models and projections all day long, but at the end of the day, we’re still sitting down at a dinner table trying to live our lives without being told that everything we do is somehow destructive.

That disconnect, between elite narrative and lived experience, is now shaping the political response we’re seeing.

A Generation Raised on Collapse

And there’s something even deeper happening underneath all of this. We now have an entire generation that grew up hearing one dominant message: that the world is nearing the edge, that time is running out, and that catastrophic collapse is not just possible but likely, unless radical transformation happens immediately.

Many young people didn’t just hear that message. They internalized it. It shaped anxiety. It shaped worldview. And in some cases, it shaped despair.

Now, slowly, some are beginning to ask a question that’s not political at all, but deeply personal: What if what I was told was only part of the story?

Proverbs 14:15 says, “The naive believes everything, but the sensible man considers his steps.”

That verse feels more relevant in a moment like this than it has in a long time. Not as a political statement, but as a reminder that fear, especially sustained fear, has a way of shaping belief faster than discernment can catch up.

A Pattern Emerges

Viewed individually, these developments might seem like political adjustments or media recalibrations. But when you step back and place them side by side, a pattern begins to emerge.

Political leaders are pulling back from climate messaging. Media outlets are acknowledging that voters are not responding the way they once expected. The most extreme climate scenarios that shaped years of public discourse are being revised.

Some of the world’s largest economies are resisting sweeping energy transitions. And even long-standing institutions are adjusting scope, timelines, and assumptions that once appeared fixed.

None of this is happening in isolation. It is happening all at once. And what it points to is something deeper than policy disagreement. It points to a growing gap between institutional certainty and public trust.

Stewardship Was Never the Issue

Now, to be clear: stewardship of the environment is not the issue. Wisdom in caring for creation is not the issue.

The issue has always been how that stewardship is defined, and how it is communicated to the people asked to live under it. Because when fear becomes the primary engine of persuasion, something else begins to erode alongside it, and that is trust. And trust, once fractured, is not easily restored.

As parts of the narrative so many young people were raised on are being revised, softened, or walked back, a difficult question emerges: how does a generation recalibrate when the story they were told about the world begins to change?

Not with anger. Not with cynicism. But with discernment.

A World Not Out of Control

Isaiah 40:22 reminds us, “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth.”

In other words, the world has never been out of control, even when our human interpretation of it has been incomplete.

So maybe what we are witnessing right now isn’t just a political shift or a media correction. Maybe it is a moment of reassessment: of how we weigh models versus reality, urgency versus accuracy, and narrative versus truth.

Because the question underneath all of this is not simply about climate policy. It is about trust. Trust in institutions. Trust in messaging. And ultimately, trust in how we understand the world we are being told to fear, and the world we truly live in.

If there is a path forward, it won’t come from fear alone. It will come from clarity. From honesty. And from the willingness to separate what we were told from what is true.

Keep your faith steady, your focus clear, and keep moving forward, because you are here for such a time as this.

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News can be useful. It helps us understand what is happening in our communities, our country, and around the world. It can alert us to events that deserve prayer, action, generosity, or thoughtful attention.

But news can also consume attention surprisingly quickly.

Breaking alerts lead to updates. Updates lead to commentary. Commentary leads to another video, article, or social media post. Before long, a few minutes of staying informed can become hours of absorbing conflict, outrage, fear, and speculation.

Christians don’t need to withdraw from what is happening in the world. But neither should the news determine the condition of our hearts.

Here are seven practical ways believers can remain informed without allowing the news cycle to become spiritually overwhelming.

1. Start with Scripture Before Starting with Headlines

One of the simplest ways to keep news in perspective is to decide which voice gets your attention first.

Opening a news app before getting out of bed can immediately fill your mind with elections, wars, economic concerns, crime, cultural conflict, and international crises. Scripture begins somewhere very different: with God, His character, His promises, and His purposes.

Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

Starting with God’s Word doesn’t make difficult events disappear. It helps place them within a larger biblical framework.

Before asking, What happened overnight? it can be helpful to remember what has not changed. God is still sovereign. His Word is still true. The Gospel is still good news. Christ is still building His Church.

Headlines change by the hour. Those truths do not.

2. Know the Difference Between Being Informed and Being Consumed

There is no biblical command requiring Christians to know every development immediately. Yet modern media can create a sense that we must continually monitor events or risk falling behind.

That urgency deserves examination.

Being informed means understanding significant events well enough to think, pray, and respond wisely. Being consumed means repeatedly checking for updates even when little has changed and continuing long after the information is useful.

One helpful question is: Am I learning something I need to know, or am I simply feeding my anxiety?

Setting specific times for checking news can help establish boundaries. So can turning off unnecessary alerts or stepping away when a developing story has become repetitive.

You can care deeply about the world without following every headline in real time.

3. Test What You Hear Instead of Reacting Immediately

Fast-moving news rewards quick reactions. Christian discernment often requires something slower. Proverbs 18:17 says, “The first one to plead his cause seems right, until his neighbor comes and examines him.”

That principle is especially useful in an age of social media clips, partial quotations, dramatic headlines, and rapidly developing stories.

Before sharing or reacting, ask:

• Is the information confirmed?
• Am I hearing the full context?
• Is this reporting, commentary, or speculation?
• Does another trustworthy source corroborate the claim?

Christians should have a particular concern for truth. Passing along something inaccurate simply because it supports our assumptions does not honor that responsibility.

Sometimes wisdom means waiting.

4. Evaluate the World Through Scripture, Not a Political Tribe

Politics matters because government, law, freedom, justice, family, human dignity, and public policy affect real people. But Christianity cannot be reduced to a political party or ideology.

Believers should evaluate political and cultural questions through Scripture rather than modifying Scripture to fit a preferred political position.

That means Christians may sometimes agree strongly with a political leader, movement, or commentator and at other times need to challenge what that same person says or does.

Biblical conviction should remain the standard.

Programs that approach culture from an explicitly Christian worldview can be useful here. Cure America with Star Parker, The Daniel Cohen Show, Rose Unplugged, Small Talk Big Issues, and The City of God are among the programs available through Real Life Network that engage cultural and public issues from faith-informed perspectives.

The objective isn’t to replace independent thinking. It is to consider events alongside voices that recognize biblical truth as relevant to public life.

5. Let the News Become a Prompt for Prayer

News can easily produce frustration. It can also become a prayer list.

• A report about war can remind us to pray for civilians, soldiers, government leaders, missionaries, and churches in affected regions.
• A story about persecution can lead us to pray for believers who face consequences for their faith.
• A report involving children, schools, marriage, or culture can prompt prayer for parents, teachers, churches, and the next generation.

First Timothy 2:1–2 instructs believers to offer prayers and intercessions “for kings and all who are in authority.” That command gives Christians something constructive to do with difficult information.

Instead of merely asking, Can you believe this? we can also ask, How should I pray about this?

6. Make Room for Good News Too

News naturally emphasizes problems. That is partly because crises, disagreements, disasters, and unexpected developments are newsworthy. But consuming an uninterrupted stream of what is going wrong can distort our perception of what God is doing.

Churches are serving communities. Missionaries are sharing the Gospel. People are coming to Christ. Christians are caring for the poor, helping disaster victims, defending the vulnerable, strengthening families, and serving in places most viewers will never see on the evening news.

Programs such as On the Ground with Samaritan’s Purse can provide glimpses of Christians responding to suffering with practical help. Fred Jordan Missions TV highlights faith expressed through compassion and community involvement. Evangelism Explosion International focuses on equipping believers to share Christ with others.

These stories don’t erase bad news.

They remind us that bad news isn’t the whole story.

7. Remember Which Kingdom Comes First

Perhaps the most important way to remain grounded is to remember where Christian hope ultimately rests.

Governments change. Political movements rise and fall. Economies strengthen and weaken. International alliances shift. Cultural attitudes change.

Jesus Christ does not.

Philippians 3:20 reminds believers, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” That doesn’t make Christians indifferent to earthly events. In fact, biblical faith should encourage believers to care about their neighbors, communities, country, and world.

But it prevents temporary events from carrying eternal weight.

Christians can vote, serve, advocate, give, pray, speak truth, and remain engaged while remembering that no election, institution, economic system, or human leader can carry the hope that belongs to Christ alone.

Stay Informed Without Losing Your Peace

There is nothing wrong with wanting to understand what is happening in the world.

The challenge is keeping the news in its proper place.

Read Scripture before allowing headlines to establish the tone of your day. Set reasonable limits. Check facts carefully. Evaluate cultural and political questions through a biblical worldview. Pray about what you learn. Look for evidence of God’s work as well as evidence of human brokenness.

Above all, remember that Christians already know the most important news.

Jesus Christ has come. He died for sinners. He rose again. He offers forgiveness and eternal life to those who trust in Him, and He will return.

No breaking-news alert can change that.

Real Life Network offers RLN News along with programs such as The Daniel Cohen Show, Cure America, Rose Unplugged, The City of God, Small Talk Big Issues, and other biblically informed programming to help Christians consider current events without separating the headlines from their faith.

Explore Christian news, cultural commentary, Bible teaching, and more for free on Real Life Network.

This article is drawn from my current episode of Rose Unplugged, airing now on the Real Life Network, where I had the extraordinary privilege of sitting down with two American heroes who know firsthand what it means to have freedom taken away.

As we observe National POW/MIA Recognition Day, I wanted to bring part of their story beyond the television screen, because their experience is not simply a chapter in American history. It is a reminder of what freedom costs, what courage looks like under unimaginable pressure, and what faith can sustain when almost everything else has been stripped away.

We talk a lot about freedom. We debate it, defend it and sometimes argue over what it means, but if we are honest, most of us rarely stop to think about what freedom actually costs. That is why National POW/MIA Recognition Day matters. It asks us to pause and remember the Americans who were captured, those who never came home, and the families who waited, prayed and carried the uncertainty with them.

Because every once in a while, we have the opportunity to hear from someone who knows exactly what it means when freedom is taken away—not for a day or a year, but for the better part of a decade.

I recently had that opportunity with Rear Admiral Robert Shumaker and Commander Everett Alvarez Jr., two Navy aviators who were shot down over North Vietnam and who together spent over sixteen years as prisoners of war. They were beaten, isolated, interrogated and separated from their families. They were told, again and again, that their country had forgotten them, yet they never allowed their captors to take the most important things from them: their identity, their faith, their loyalty to one another, their honor, and ultimately their love of country.

Commander Everett Alvarez was the first American aviator shot down and captured in North Vietnam. On August 5, 1964, while flying an A-4 Skyhawk from the USS Constellation, his aircraft was hit. He ejected over the water and was captured, with no roadmap and no one who could tell him what the coming years would look like because no American aviator had yet lived through what he was about to experience.

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Then, months later, on February 11, 1965, Rear Admiral Robert Shumaker was shot down while flying an F-8 Crusader from the USS Coral Sea. He was forced to eject at extremely low altitude, suffering a broken back in the process, and was eventually captured.

What happened next is almost impossible for those of us living in freedom to comprehend: years of isolation, interrogation, brutal punishment and uncertainty about whether they would ever see their families or their country again. Yet something remarkable happened inside those prison walls. When everything external was stripped away, these men discovered that there were still things their captors could not control, and one of those things was the human mind.

Admiral Shumaker has described designing an entire house in his mind during his years in isolation, brick by brick and room by room. Years later, after returning home, he actually built that house. His captors could control his cell, his movements and his physical circumstances, but they could not enter his mind and take away his ability to create.

Then there was the tap code, perhaps one of the most remarkable examples of human ingenuity and determination to come out of those prison walls. Speaking to another prisoner was forbidden and could bring severe punishment, so Shumaker and Air Force Captain “Smitty” Harris developed a five-by-five grid of the alphabet that allowed prisoners to communicate by tapping letters through the concrete walls. One tap, another tap, another message—a language created in captivity that became a lifeline for men who desperately needed to know they were not alone.

Eventually, their captors discovered the code, and Shumaker and other senior officers were placed in solitary confinement for roughly three years because they were suspected of being leaders of the communication network. But isolating them did not destroy the brotherhood. If anything, their experience demonstrated how powerful that bond had become. Men who had never necessarily known one another before the war were willing to endure punishment rather than betray each other, and they found ways to encourage one another, communicate, pray and remain human in a place designed to strip them of their humanity.

And that brings me to faith, because Scripture is filled with people who discovered that God's presence does not always mean the absence of suffering.

Think about Joseph. His brothers betrayed him, sold him into slavery, and eventually he ended up in an Egyptian prison for something he did not do. Yet Scripture tells us that the Lord was with Joseph even there. Joseph did not know how his story would end, but God did. Years later, Joseph could look back at the people who had intended to harm him and say, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good.”

Or think about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They refused to bow to the king's idol and were thrown into the fiery furnace, but God did not keep them from entering the fire; He was with them in it. That distinction matters because sometimes deliverance is not an escape from the trial. Sometimes deliverance is discovering that you are not alone in it.

David understood that when he wrote, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” The promise was not that the valley would disappear. The promise was about who would walk through it with him.

That is what I hear in the stories of these POWs—not despair, but resilience; not surrender, but resistance; and not the absence of suffering, but faith under pressure. Their circumstances forced them back onto something deeper than comfort or convenience, onto the courage, discipline, faith and determination God had placed within them.

And perhaps most remarkably, these men came home.

In January 1973, word began reaching the prisoners that a peace agreement had been signed and that they would finally be going home. Admiral Shumaker was released on February 12, 1973—eight years and one day after he had been shot down. Commander Alvarez came home the same day after 3,113 days in captivity, more than eight and a half years.

But coming home was not simply the end of their story. They had families to reconnect with, lives to rebuild and years to make up for, yet when you listen to these men, what you do not hear is a desire to define themselves by what was done to them. Instead, you hear men who came home with their faith intact, their honor intact and their love of country stronger than ever.

That is a tested love—not a naïve love, but the kind of love that comes from discovering exactly what something costs and being willing to pay the price anyway.

We throw the word hero around a lot these days, and I don't throw it around lightly. But Admiral Shumaker and Commander Alvarez earned it in a place most of us cannot imagine: one tap on a concrete wall, one whispered prayer and one refusal to give their captors what they wanted, repeated day after day and year after year until, finally, they came home.

And Hebrews gives the rest of us a charge that is particularly appropriate today: “Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.”

Remember them—not just on National POW/MIA Recognition Day, but every time you exercise a freedom that they were denied. Remember the families who waited, the years they lost, the men who were captured and the men who never came home. And remember that freedom is not free simply because it is familiar to us.

For many Americans today, freedom is so ordinary that we barely notice it. We wake up, speak our minds, worship, travel, raise our families and go about our lives. We can disagree with our government and with one another, and we can live our faith openly. We can gather with our families without wondering whether someone is coming to take us away. That is an extraordinary gift, and perhaps one of the greatest dangers is that we become so accustomed to it that we forget its cost.

As America celebrates its 250th anniversary, that is something this generation needs to understand. Freedom is not merely an idea; freedom has a price. Some have paid that price with their lives, others with years, some with wounds that could be seen and others with wounds no one could see. Some endured captivity but refused to allow captivity to define them.

Admiral Shumaker and Commander Alvarez remind us what that looks like. They were stripped of almost everything, but they would not surrender everything. They held onto one another, their faith, their identity and their honor, and then they came home.

So today, on National POW/MIA Recognition Day, let's remember the prisoners who endured captivity, the missing whose families still carry the questions and the sacrifices of those who served. Let us also remember what these two men demonstrated so powerfully: you can take a man's freedom without taking his courage; you can take away his comfort without taking away his faith; you can isolate him without making him alone; and you can imprison his body without imprisoning his spirit.

The freedom we enjoy today was not handed to us without a cost. Men like Robert Shumaker and Everett Alvarez paid part of that cost for the rest of us. The least we can do is remember—and perhaps even more importantly, the least we can do is live like we understand what they paid for.

Freedom is a gift, but it is also a responsibility, and it is something worth protecting. As Christians, we understand that God is sovereign even in the darkest circumstances, but we also understand that courage is not passive. We are called to stand firm, to remember those who suffer, to honor those who serve and to be faithful with whatever freedom and responsibility God has entrusted to us.

So on this National POW/MIA Recognition Day, may we never become so comfortable with freedom that we forget its cost, and may we never become so accustomed to our blessings that we forget the men and women who sacrificed so that we could enjoy them.

God bless these men. God bless every American POW and MIA. God bless their families. And God bless the United States of America.

For more content like this, watch Rose Unplugged on Real Life Network.

Christianity makes specific claims about God, Jesus, Scripture, morality, and the meaning of life. Apologetics asks whether those claims can stand up to serious questions.

That makes Christian apologetics much more than learning clever responses to skeptics. It is the process of examining what Christianity teaches, why Christians believe it is true, and how those beliefs compare with competing explanations of reality.

First Peter 3:15 calls believers to “always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you.” That defense is not meant to be combative. It is meant to be thoughtful, truthful, and grounded in a faith that is willing to be examined.

Here are seven important apologetics conversations that can help Christians better understand the foundations of their faith and become more prepared to talk about them with others.

1. Does God Really Exist?

Christianity begins with a foundational claim: God exists, and He is the Creator of everything.

Apologetics asks whether there are good reasons to believe that claim is true. Christian thinkers often point to the beginning of the universe, the remarkable order and fine-tuning found in creation, the existence of objective moral standards, and the question of why anything exists at all.

These arguments do not attempt to reduce God to a scientific formula. Instead, they challenge the idea that belief in God is irrational or unsupported.

This conversation can be especially important for Christians who have heard that faith and reason are opposites. Examining the evidence can reveal that belief in a Creator rests on substantial philosophical and scientific questions that atheism must also account for.

2. Can We Trust the Bible?

Christianity also makes a historical claim: God has revealed truth through Scripture.

That raises important questions. Has the Bible been accurately preserved? Are the Gospel accounts historically reliable? Do archaeology and ancient history support or undermine the people, places, and events described in Scripture?

Christian apologetics does not ask believers to simply assume the Bible is trustworthy. It looks at manuscript evidence, textual transmission, historical corroboration, archaeology, eyewitness testimony, and the remarkable preservation of the biblical text.

Because Christianity is rooted in events claimed to have happened in real history, those claims can be investigated.

For many believers, studying this evidence does more than help answer objections. It deepens confidence that the Bible they read today is connected reliably to the texts written in the ancient world.

3. Did Jesus Really Rise from the Dead?

No Christian truth claim is more important than the resurrection. The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:14 that “if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.” Christianity therefore does not present the resurrection merely as a symbolic story about hope. It presents it as an event in history.

Apologetics examines the facts surrounding Jesus’ crucifixion, the empty tomb, the testimony of His followers, the reported appearances after His death, and the dramatic change in disciples who moved from fear and hiding to publicly proclaiming that they had seen the risen Christ.

The central question becomes: What explanation best accounts for the evidence? If Jesus truly rose from the dead, then His claims about Himself, God, salvation, and eternal life deserve to be taken seriously.

4. Has Science Disproved Christianity?

Another common claim is that modern science has made Christian belief unnecessary. But Christianity and science are not answering precisely the same questions. Science studies the natural world and how it functions. Christianity makes broader claims about why the universe exists, where its laws come from, why life exists, and whether creation ultimately points beyond itself.

Christian apologetics explores questions such as: Did the universe have a beginning? Why does nature operate according to consistent laws? How did life originate? What explains the extraordinary complexity found in living systems?

These are not questions Christians need to fear.

Apologetics gives individuals an opportunity to examine creation, science, and biblical claims together rather than accepting the assumption that faith and serious inquiry cannot coexist.

5. If God Is Good, Why Is There So Much Suffering?

Christianity claims that God is both good and powerful. The reality of suffering therefore creates one of the most difficult apologetics questions. If God is good, why does He allow pain, injustice, disease, natural disasters, and death?

This is not merely an abstract philosophical puzzle. For someone who has suffered deeply, the question may be intensely personal.

The Bible does not minimize suffering. Its pages are filled with grief, lament, injustice, persecution, and loss. Christianity teaches that the world is fallen, human beings possess genuine moral agency, evil has real consequences, and God is working toward a final restoration in which suffering and death will not have the last word.

Good apologetics should never treat another person’s pain as an intellectual exercise. But it can show that suffering does not make Christianity incoherent. In fact, Christianity offers a framework for understanding both why the world is broken and why there is reason for hope.

6. Can There Really Be Objective Right and Wrong?

Christianity also makes moral claims. It teaches that some things are truly right or wrong because morality is grounded in the character of God. That raises another important question: Are moral truths objective, or are they simply personal and cultural preferences?

If morality is entirely subjective, then statements such as “torturing innocent people is wrong” ultimately become expressions of opinion rather than statements about reality. Yet people routinely speak as though some actions are genuinely unjust, regardless of what an individual or society happens to approve.

Christian apologetics asks whether that universal moral intuition points beyond humanity to an objective moral lawgiver.

This conversation has significant implications for modern debates involving human dignity, justice, sexuality, family, freedom, and the value of human life. Before debating individual issues, it can be helpful to ask the deeper question: Where does moral authority come from in the first place?

7. Is Jesus Really the Only Way to God?

Perhaps one of Christianity’s most challenging claims in modern culture is Jesus’ statement in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

That claim sounds exclusive because it is exclusive. Christianity teaches that reconciliation with God comes through Christ. But apologetics asks an important follow-up question: Is Jesus justified in making that claim?

The answer depends on who Jesus is. If He is simply one religious teacher among many, His words may sound unreasonable. But if He is truly the Son of God who died and rose again, then His claim carries unique authority.

The conversation therefore circles back to the historical case for Jesus Himself.

Christianity does not claim that Christians are morally superior to everyone else. It claims the opposite: Every person needs salvation. The Gospel teaches that God has provided that salvation through Christ and offers it freely to anyone who believes.

Where Can I Find Christian Apologetics Resources?

These conversations can seem intimidating at first, but apologetics does not require a theology degree.

Real Life Network offers free programs that help people examine Christianity’s major truth claims and think more carefully about difficult questions.

Cross Examined with Frank Turek explores topics such as the existence of God, morality, the resurrection, Scripture, and common objections to Christianity. The Creation Today Show examines questions involving science, creation, and worldview. Other RLN teaching and interview programs address biblical reliability, cultural issues, and the reasons Christians can have confidence in what they believe.

These resources can be useful for personal study, parents and teens, small groups, or anyone who wants to become better prepared for conversations about faith.

Christian apologetics does not promise an instant answer to every question. What it does offer is an invitation to examine Christianity seriously.

If Christian claims about God, Jesus, Scripture, morality, and salvation are true, they should be able to withstand honest investigation. And the more carefully believers understand those claims, the better prepared they become to explain why their hope is grounded in more than sentiment or tradition.

Explore free Christian apologetics and biblical worldview programming anytime on Real Life Network.

Throughout history, people have looked to their leaders for strength, wisdom, and direction. But here's a question worth asking: who do our leaders look to?

Our Founders understood something that seems almost forgotten today. They believed rights came from God, not government. That's why the Declaration of Independence speaks of our Creator. The idea was simple but profound: if our rights come from God, then government cannot legitimately take them away.

For most of American history, if your job title was President of the United States, then securing the free exercise of religion wasn't a side issue — it was part of the job description.

From the very beginning, George Washington understood that. Washington spoke of Divine Providence and believed the success of the nation depended on something higher than human ambition. In 1790, he assured a Hebrew congregation in Newport that the government "gives bigotry no sanction" and "persecution no assistance." He set a tone that religious liberty would not belong to one group but would be protected for all.

John Adams carried that same conviction forward. He warned that nothing was more dangerous than the government meddling with religion. For Adams, liberty and morality were inseparable, and freedom without virtue could not survive.

Thomas Jefferson, who was often misunderstood, insisted that rights come from our Creator, not government. And when he spoke of a "wall of separation between church and state," he was arguing for protection of faith from government interference — not the removal of faith from public life.

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, went even deeper. He believed conscience itself could not be governed — that no authority on earth had the right to control what a person believes before God.

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So, when we talk about religious liberty in America, we're not talking about a modern idea or a political talking point. We're talking about something woven into the foundation of this country. And that thread continues through American history.

Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of national crisis, turned repeatedly to prayer and spoke openly of God's sovereignty over the nation. His Second Inaugural Address reads less like a political speech and more like a sermon on accountability before God.

Even later presidents carried this understanding forward. Benjamin Harrison, a devout Presbyterian elder, lived his faith openly and led prayer meetings long before and during his time in leadership. His convictions were part of how he governed and how he lived.

William McKinley, a lifelong Methodist who once considered entering the ministry, leaned heavily on his faith during moments of national decision, including times of war and uncertainty. He understood leadership as stewardship under God.

And Ronald Reagan, in the modern era, put it plainly when he said, "Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant, and the rule of law under God is acknowledged." He believed, simply, that without God, democracy cannot endure.

Now, none of these men were perfect. That's not the point. The point is that across centuries, from Washington to Reagan, there has been a consistent recognition: leadership is strongest when it is humbled by something greater than itself.

One worldview says authority begins and ends with man. The other says authority ultimately comes from God. And that difference shapes everything — from how a nation defines freedom, to how it protects conscience, to how it understands human dignity.

That's why the conversation about faith in the public square still matters today. Not because government should replace the church, but because leaders, like the rest of us, are shaped by what they believe about truth, authority, and God. It isn't really about politics. It's about whether faith still has a place in the public square. It's about whether moral truth exists beyond political power. And it's about whether leaders should seek wisdom from sources greater than themselves.

A Pastor Who Stood at the Crossroads of Faith and Power

There is one man who quietly stood at the intersection of faith and power for more than half a century. Not a president. Not a politician. But a pastor. And that was Billy Graham.

Graham once said that whether the story of Christ is told in a huge stadium, across the desk of a powerful leader, or shared with a golfing companion, it satisfies a common hunger. He understood something most people in power eventually discover -- fame, authority, and success don't silence spiritual need. They reveal it.

Over the course of American history, that truth played out in remarkable ways. Every U.S. president from Harry Truman to Barack Obama met with Billy Graham while he was alive. Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, when presidents faced crisis, war, scandal, or personal decisions, many of them asked for one thing: prayer and counsel.

It began simply with Harry Truman. In 1950, a congressman called Billy Graham and asked if he'd like to meet the president. Without any briefing on protocol, he agreed and went in with three colleagues to speak with President Truman, who told Graham that he lived by the Sermon on the Mount. Before he left, the two prayed together. Years later, Truman warmly received Graham at his home in Independence, Missouri.

Dwight Eisenhower invited Graham's counsel during moments of military and national tension, once calling him "an ambassador of heaven." Graham later said Eisenhower was the first president who really asked his counsel in depth, when he was sending troops into Little Rock. Just before Eisenhower died, Graham was invited to see him at Walter Reed Hospital. After talking again about assurance of salvation, the two men prayed.

John F. Kennedy spent time with him just before taking office, reflecting on the moral condition of the nation.

And Lyndon Johnson — perhaps one of the presidents closest to him — invited Billy Graham into the White House repeatedly. Graham later recalled that whenever he said, "Let's have a prayer," Johnson would kneel beside him.

Richard Nixon and Billy Graham had known each other since 1950, and over the years they developed a real personal friendship. While Nixon was often seen as private and complicated in public life, Graham experienced something different behind the scenes — he found him warmer and more compassionate than the public image suggested.

Nixon was also shaped by his Quaker background, and in private moments he would often ask Graham to pray with him and read Scripture when they met. But during the final year of his presidency, as Watergate intensified, those meetings stopped. It was later reported that Nixon didn't want Graham drawn into the scandal, or "tarred with Watergate."

Gerald Ford defended their friendship publicly, saying Graham's visits were "get-togethers of old friends" with no political agenda. Jimmy Carter called his reputation "above reproach."

Ronald Reagan credited Billy Graham with deepening his own prayer life, especially after the assassination attempt in 1981, when Graham immediately came to pray with the Reagan family. Reagan said it was through Billy Graham that he found himself praying even more than daily, and that in the position he held, his prayers increasingly were for the wisdom to make decisions that would serve God and be pleasing to Him.

George H.W. Bush said no one could be president without understanding prayer, and credited Graham with helping him understand that truth. Bill Clinton remembered hearing him preach as a boy in Arkansas and later described his ministry as always completely private, always completely genuine. George W. Bush said a private conversation with Billy Graham in Maine planted the spiritual seed that led to his own faith renewal. Barack Obama visited him in North Carolina and prayed with him privately. And even Donald Trump met him during a celebration honoring his ministry legacy.

Different eras. Different politics. Different personalities. But a consistent pattern: when the most powerful leaders in the world needed grounding, many of them turned to a pastor.

Billy Graham never accepted political appointments, even when presidents like Johnson and Nixon offered them. He refused every time — because he understood his role was not to govern, but to point people back to God. And maybe that's why presidents trusted him. He wasn't there to manage policy. He was there to remind them of something higher than policy. Something higher than power. Something higher than themselves.

In a culture where leadership is often measured by influence, Billy Graham quietly reminded us that true leadership is measured by humility. And that raises a question worth sitting with: if some of the most powerful men in the world needed spiritual counsel, what does that say about the rest of us?

Because whether you're in the Oval Office or living an ordinary life, the truth remains the same. We all need wisdom beyond ourselves. We all need grounding beyond politics. And ultimately, we all need a foundation that doesn't shift with the times.

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In August 2026, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed the Prioritizing Patient Access to Care Act, removing the state's remaining gestational limits on abortion and giving health care providers broader discretion to perform the procedure later in pregnancy without legal consequence. The room applauded. Hard
to believe, I know. Massachusetts now stands alongside nine other states and the District of Columbia in permitting abortion up to the moment of birth.

Healey framed the law as protection for families facing devastating medical news late in pregnancy, and as a shield against a more restrictive national climate. But protection is not the word for it. What this law actually does is strip away the last legal limit on when a child's life can be ended — clearing the way for abortion up to the very moment of birth. Pro-life advocates have rightly called this what it is: the United States is now one of only a handful of countries on earth with no gestational limit on abortion whatsoever, and laws like this one expose late-term children, who can feel pain, who can survive outside the womb, to the most violent procedures medicine performs.

An entire room stood and applauded that.

There's something our culture rarely talks about, something this signing makes impossible to ignore: the faces we can see. The lives that are here.

I'm talking about the people who survived abortion attempts.

For decades, abortion in America has largely been discussed through politics, court decisions, and ideology. But behind all of that — there are human beings. And some of those human beings survived.

They are alive today. They have names, stories, families, and voices. You can look into their eyes and hear them tell you what happened. And that changes the conversation. Because suddenly abortion isn’t theoretical or abstract. It’s personal.

There are documented cases of babies surviving abortion procedures in the United States. Survivor organizations have worked to bring visibility to those stories. Survivors have spoken publicly about living with physical injuries, emotional trauma, and the lifelong reality of knowing someone once tried to end their life before they were even born.

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One of the most well-known survivors is Melissa Ohden, who survived a saline infusion abortion and has spent years speaking publicly about her experience and advocating for the born alive.

And even actor Sylvester Stallone spoke recently about being told by his mother that an attempted abortion failed before he was born. He has stated that his mother told him, "The only reason you're here is because the hanger didn't work.

Think about that for a moment. These are not "hypotheticals." These are people. People who laugh. Who love. Who contribute to the world. People made in the image of God.

And Scripture could not be clearer about the value of life.

Psalm 139 says: "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in mymother's womb."

And Jeremiah 1:5 says: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you."

That means human worth is not determined by circumstance. Not by convenience. And not by whether a life was planned, expected, or even wanted by others.

Value comes from God. Because God is the author of life.

And when we hear the stories of abortion survivors, we are forced to confront a reality our culture often tries to avoid: What happens when the child survives? What happens when the life everyone was told would never matter... is standing right in front of us? With a face, a voice, and a testimony?

And maybe that is why these stories are so powerful. Because they remind us that every life carries purpose. Every life — not some, not only the easy or convenient lives. Every life.

Now I also know this conversation touches a deep pain for many people. There are women — and men — who carry grief, regret, and wounds connected to abortion. And the Christian message is not that forgiveness is impossible. It’s the opposite. There is grace through Christ. There is healing through God. And there is most assuredly
redemption at the cross.

But truth still matters. And the truth is that these survivors exist. They are living proof that what is in the womb is not potential life. It is life.

Make Your Life Count

There are moments when we are reminded just how fragile life really is. Hearing the voices of people who survived abortion attempts, looking into the faces of people who were never expected to live — it changes something. It forces us to remember that every single life carries value.

Not because society assigns it value, or because government recognizes it. And not because culture approves of it. But because God created it.

Every life.

And maybe that's the deeper message in all of this. Not just that life should be protected — although it absolutely should. But that life should mean something. That our lives should count for something greater than ourselves.

Ephesians 2:10 tells us: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

Think about that. Prepared beforehand. That means your life is not random. It is not accidental. And it is never without purpose. Not the child in the womb, the struggling mother, or the survivor whose story seemed impossible. Not you.

We are told that we were created for good works — that we have nothing to do with — God already prepared those good works for us before we were even born. All we need do is to walk in them.

God wastes nothing.

And the truth is, none of us knows how long we've been given here. But we do get to decide what we do with the time we have.

Will we use our lives to protect what is vulnerable? To stand for truth when it's unpopular? To bring light into places that have grown dark? Will we make our lives count and walk in good works?

Because one day, titles won't matter. Politics won't matter. Fame won't matter. What will matter is whether we lived with courage, loved well, stood firmly in truth, and whether we pointed people toward God.

That is a life that counts.

And maybe the people who survived what should have taken their lives understand that better than most. Because when someone survives what should have taken their life, they tend to understand something very deeply: life is a gift. A sacred gift. And gifts from God are never meant to be wasted.

So wherever you are today — whatever your story may be — remember this: you were created on purpose. By God. For a purpose. Because of that we should commit to live courageously, stand faithfully, and love boldly. And dedicated in love to the One who created you to make your life count.

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This subject was explored in depth on an episode of Rose Unplugged on Real Life Network; “Choice is a Person”.

Rounding the corner, I was surprised to see nearly a dozen Fulanis, mainly boys, sitting in a small hallway waiting to speak to us on a warm afternoon in Plateau State, Nigeria. Some smiled, and some just stared at my travel partner and me from Christian Freedom International as we entered the modest office space where we would be interviewing them.

The mainly Muslim Fulani tribe has risen in international awareness in recent years as antagonists in conflicts between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, committing brutal acts of terrorism, violence, and kidnappings of Christians living in villages in Northern Nigeria. I witnessed the widespread scale of these attacks and their effects on Christian communities while visiting Nigeria earlier this year. However, the Fulanis lined up in the hallway were there to tell us a different story of what is happening among some Nigerian Muslims — they are turning to Christ.

Twenty-seven-year-old Mohamed was all smiles as he shared his story. Growing up in a Fulani Muslim family, he attended Islamic school where he was instructed to memorize the Qur’an in Arabic, a language he didn’t know. He asked his father why that was. Then he started to ask more and more questions about Islam, which made his parents suspicious.

So, Mohamed did his own research and continued to ask questions. It was at this time that he happened to become friends with a couple of Christians, who were able to tell him about Christianity. When Mohamed’s parents heard he was interested in Christianity, they gathered people in the community to persuade him to deny his growing conviction that the Christian faith was true. Yet, a woman in the community encouraged Mohamed to meet with her pastor — he did, and immediately gave his life to Christ.

After this, Mohamed’s mother acted very kindly to him and brought him a glass of milk. This was unusual given their strained relationship. Mohamed smelled what he thought to be rat poison in the milk and turned to his mother, asking “Mom, are you trying to kill me?” She denied it. He said, “Okay, well, it will be on your head.” After drinking one sip, Mohamed immediately doubled over and started vomiting. His mother said, “Let your God save you” and left him there.

Yet, Mohamed lived. When his mother came back to find him alive, she was furious and threatened to shoot him. He rose and started to run away just as his brother picked up a gun and tried to shoot him. In our interview, Mohamed lifted his pant leg to show the scar where a bullet had entered his leg as he escaped. Now, he is class president at his Bible school.

We also met 26-year-old Amadu. One night a few years ago, he had a dream of a man in white, but he couldn’t see the man’s face. Amadu prayed as a Muslim that God would show him what this dream meant. The dreams continued, and he couldn’t shake his need to understand them.

A small group of Christians at his work would gather on break to pray together. Searching for peace from his dreams, Amadu began to sit in on these gatherings. His Muslim boss told him to stop. But he needed someone to interpret his dreams, and his new Christian friends suggested he meet with their pastor.

This pastor told him that the man in white in his dreams was Jesus. The pastor said, “He wants to bring you from darkness to light and for you to know him.” Amadu asked, “What do I need to do?” The pastor told him he needed to accept Christ and become a Christian, but he told Amadu to go home and really think about it before making the decision because he knew it would be difficult with Amadu’s family.

A few weeks later, Amadu came back and announced he was ready to become a Christian. So, the pastor led him through the sinner’s prayer. Amadu started attending church, but something inside him told him not to tell his parents. Two months later, his parents began to ask why he wasn’t going to mosque or saying his daily Muslim prayers. Feeling their increasing scrutiny, Amadu made the hard decision to leave his parents’ house and flee to a different town. Amadu told us if his parents learned he became a Christian, “I will be killed.”

Another young man, Jalo, told us that he first became interested in Christianity when he was herding his father’s cattle. He would take the cattle to graze and sometimes go on to Christian farms, where his cattle could eat all the farmer’s crops in a single day. This is devastating to an impoverished farmer.

Yet, time and again, the Christian farmers would call Jalo’s father and say, “It’s okay, we forgive you, but please don’t do this again.” This was weird to Jalo. He thought, what kind of God do they serve that they forgive like this?

One day he asked the father of his Christian friend, “Why do you people always forgive when we do harm to you?” His friend’s father replied simply that Christians forgive. It was at that moment Jalo was sure he wanted to be a Christian. His friend told him to go home and that God would send someone to lead Jalo to Christ.

Jalo continued herding, and while he was sleeping overnight in a field, he began to have dreams. In one dream, a voice asked him, “You can have money, you can have everything. But what do you have if you have no salvation?”

With more determination than ever, Jalo pursued his Christian friend and asked to become a Christian. The friend took him to a pastor who gave Jalo a sober warning about the cost of following Jesus: “You will lose everything. They will persecute you. Christianity won’t give you anything… no money, not a wife. The only help we could maybe give you is send you to a Bible school.”

Jalo knew what it was to suffer; he had seen much suffering in the bush. And he was sure he wanted to follow Jesus.

Today, Mohamed, Amadu, and Jalo are all enrolled in the Bible college at Christian Faith Institute. There they are being discipled in the Bible and equipped to be missionaries and pastors themselves to be a witness for Christ in some very dark places.

I’m deeply grateful to have been able to travel to Nigeria with Christian Freedom International, a humanitarian aid group serving the persecuted church. Not only did I see first-hand the devastating impact of persecution, but I also saw the reasons to hope — that despite the darkness there, God is moving in the lives and hearts of those in the most difficult-to-reach and dangerous places.

Note: Names of those featured in this piece have been changed for their protection.

This article was originally written by Arielle Del Turco and published on The Washington Stand. For more content like this, visit Real Life Network.

These reflections first aired as part of an episode of Rose Unplugged on Real Life Network.

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about how my life and responsibilities have changed. In a good way. A very good way. Maybe it's because I'm a grandmother now. Watching my son and daughter-in- law with their toddler has a way of pulling me backward and forward at the same time. It's made me think about my early days as a mom and the joys and challenges that came with that responsibility. And let's be honest, parenting really is the best job in the world… but it is also a very intense job.

And I've been thinking about the difference — the very real difference — between moms and dads. In fact, this is exactly what they're meant to do — be different. When a man lays his head down on the pillow at night, he's out. Just like that. He sleeps, he gets up, and he goes back out the next day to care for his family in his own steady way.

But when women lay their heads down at night? Our minds are still running. It takes us a while to fall asleep. Because every single day, as a mom, you are carrying around more information than anybody else on the planet. You know exactly where your child is. You know his schedule by heart. You know he has study hall sixth period. You know what he's going to have for lunch — not just today, but tomorrow. You know the school lunch menu better than the cafeteria does.

Moms know how to handle doctor's appointments. We know how to get them seen when they're sick. We know what soothes our children, what worries them, and what they're not saying out loud. Why? Because we're moms. And that's the job. But I also know the men in our audience — they are there, engaged. They work hard. That's why families work best when both roles are honored.When strong families are built intentionally.

And thinking about that strong family unit brought back a memory for me. Years ago, when my son was about five, I wrote a letter to my dad. I don't remember every word, but I remember the heart behind it. Even then, I understood that while Mom was holding the details of our days together, Dad was the foundation.

I remember going fishing with him. I don't remember if we caught a single fish — but I remember the ham and capicola sandwich, and the cold can of Coke we packed for lunch. I remember how excited I was to just have that time alone with him. I remember the sacrifices. I remember the day he had to sell the car he loved when the steel mills began shutting down in Pittsburgh. He owned a design business that had worked with many of them, and when that industry faltered, so did his livelihood.

After he sold the car, I can still see him counting the cash out on the table. I think he sensed how badly we felt watching him give up something he really enjoyed. So, he suddenly tossed the money into the air, just to make us laugh. I was sad for him — but relieved when he did that. He did what he had to do for us. And because he was a resilient man, he redirected, rebuilt, and his business thrived until the day he retired.

Aristotle explained: “A multitude of great events if they turn out well will make life happier … while if they turn out ill, they crush and maim happiness … Yet even in these — nobility shines through, when a man bears with resignation many great misfortunes, not through insensibility to pain but through nobility and greatness of soul.”

I remember hard moments, too. Sitting in the front seat as he drove me to the hospital after I fell down a hill. I was crying, asking if I was going to die. Yeah — I was always dramatic. Dad answered with such calm assurance — even though I could see the worry in his eyes. And that's the thing about fatherhood. So much of its impact is quiet. You don't always see it in the moment — you feel it later, when you realize how much of what steadied you was simply someone showing up day after day.

And there's another memory that shaped me just as deeply. I remember sitting at my mother's bedside as she was dying from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I was the oldest of four — all of us rather young; heck, she was young. Only 48 years old. I told her I was so sorry for all the trouble I caused her as a teenager — and let me tell you, I caused plenty. I was rebellious, strong- headed, and well — a bit wild.

Do you know what she said to me? She said, “Do you think I don't know how teenagers are?” That moment was grace. It was forgiveness without a lecture. It was a salve to my spirit. And what's remarkable is that years later, as I was parenting a teenager myself, I heard her words again — steadying me, softening me, reminding me what love looks like in hard seasons. Because parenting is a long game. I remember when my own five-year-old once said, “I don't like you, Mom,” after I had to discipline him. It hurt. But then I thought about my parents. And I realized something — children don't always understand love in the moment. But they remember it over time.

I remember far more now than I did then. And I honestly believe I wouldn't have the joy, the home, the fulfillment I have today without my parents — and without God's faithfulness woven through it all. That's what I want to dig into here — the mother's heart, the father's role, and the strength of the family unit. There is a poem written by Maureen Hawkins called The Miracle of Life, and there's a line I read while I was pregnant that has never left me: “Before you were conceived, I wanted you. Before you were born, I loved you. Before you were here an hour, I would die for you. This is the miracle of life.”

It truly is the miracle of life — a truth every mother recognizes, deep in her bones, long before she ever has the words for it. While preparing for my show on parenting, I was reminded of Jochebed — Moses' mother. She's mentioned only briefly in Scripture, yet her obedience and courage changed history. Her love didn't just save a child — it contributed to leading a nation out of slavery.

There was a new king of Egypt who didn't have the relationship with Joseph that the previous king had. As a result, over time the Israelites were no longer favored guests in their land. The Pharaoh began to imagine them as the enemy, and as a people to be feared should they rise or join forces against Egypt. Out of fear and growing hatred of the Israelites, Pharaoh first enslaves them then commands the death of male children. Exodus 1:15-21 reads: “The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, ‘When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.’”

The midwives couldn't bring themselves to obey Pharaoh's command. When they were questioned, they answered with remarkable courage and wisdom. They said in their defense that the Hebrew women gave birth so quickly the babies were already born before the midwives arrived. I love that. Very clever. You must admire their boldness — their cleverness, their reverence for life, and their fear of God. And Scripture tells us that God honored their faithfulness by blessing them with families of their own.

During the time that Jochebed gave birth to her son Moses, Pharaoh ordered all Hebrew boys thrown into the Nile. So, she hid her baby for three months. When she could no longer keep him safe, she did the unthinkable — she placed him in a waterproof basket and set him among the reeds. Can you imagine the heaviness of her heart? Keeping him meant certain danger. Letting him go meant uncertainty. But one choice offered a chance at life. That's what mothers do — risk everything for their children.

God honored that trust. Moses was discovered by Pharaoh's daughter, and through Jochebed's daughter Miriam's quick thinking, Jochebed was chosen to nurse her own son — was even paid to do so. God allowed Moses to be loved by both his biological mother and his adoptive mother. What compassion. What grace. Especially towards Jochebed.

Moses is remembered for leading a nation out of bondage. But behind that story is a mother who trusted God with what she loved most. Jochebed's story is really a story of surrender. Of trusting God to take an impossible situation and turn it into something miraculous. I remember the day Iplaced my fears for my son into God's hands.

I had given my son my very best. I raised him up in the way he should go, I loved him, sacrificed for him. But there comes a moment when we must do what Jochebed did. We must entrust our children to the One who loves them even more than we do. I remember telling God: I love my son so much — but however much I love him I realize that my love cannot possibly compare to the love that you have for him.

Setting our children free to be what God intended them to be is, at some point in their lives, the right thing to do — the only thing to do. Setting our children free to become who God created them to be isn’t easy — but it is right. And like Jochebed, that act of trust becomes part of our own story too.

I began with a quote about a mother's love. But it also echoes the heart of God toward each of us: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I set you apart.”

Women — we must trust our child's life to the One who gives life. And that same God still holds our children — and us — in His hands.

For more content like this, visit Real Life Network.

Speaking to the rise of socialist candidates within the Democratic Party, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) warned that “the barbarians are inside the gate.” He went on to explain, “We are fighting right now in Congress over whether we’re going to maintain our status as a constitutional republic... or go down this dark road of death to communism.”

The Speaker isn’t crying wolf; the threat is real. But the battle to preserve the Republic will not ultimately be won in Congress. There will be legislative fights. There will be elections where your vote could determine the balance of power and whether socialist policies further undermine our freedoms. But if the barbarians are already inside the gate, we need to ask: How did they get in? And how do we get them out?

Congress reflects culture more than it creates it. Laws can restrain evil, but they cannot create virtue. A constitutional republic depends on citizens with the moral character to govern themselves and families that instill virtue in the next generation. Culture is ultimately shaped by what people believe about God, truth, and morality. When those foundations erode, political institutions follow.

To understand how this ideological and spiritual challenge gained traction in America, we have to look beyond politics to the forces that shape a nation’s character.

In his 1983 book “The Gravedigger File,” author and social critic Os Guinness warned that secularization was hollowing out the institution that had long guided Western civilization: the church. As biblical faith weakened, society’s moral foundations weakened, creating a vacuum secular ideologies would inevitably fill.

A little more than a decade later, Judge Robert Bork approached the same crisis from a different direction. In “Slouching Toward Gomorrah,” he argued that America’s moral and cultural foundations were being eroded by radical individualism and radical egalitarianism, weakening the institutions upon which constitutional government depends. Nominated to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan in 1987, Bork was rejected because of his originalist view of the Constitution. Though writing as a constitutional scholar rather than a theologian, he arrived at a remarkably similar conclusion.

After coming to Washington, I hoped to meet Robert Bork. I invited him to lunch, and he graciously accepted. During our conversation, I asked for his prognosis of America’s future.

He replied, “The culture is too far gone for the country to turn around.”

For a moment, I thought there was no hope.

Then he added, “There is one thing that could save the country, a genuine renewal of religion in America. But unfortunately, the church has been, and continues to be, in decline.”

So how did the barbarians get inside the gate? Through the church’s loss of its preserving influence as the salt of the earth. And how do we secure the gate once again?

Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth.” Salt preserves what would otherwise decay. History has confirmed what Christ taught. The decisive battle for America’s future will not ultimately be won in Congress, but in the church as it once again shapes the nation’s moral character. Change the nation’s character, and its politics will follow.

“In God We Trust” cannot remain merely a motto etched in stone. It must once again become the conviction written upon our hearts and reflected in how we live.

This article was originally published on The Washington Stand. For more content like this, visit Real Life Network.

This piece grew out of a recent episode of Rose Unplugged, where I  sat down with decluttering expert Joshua Becker to talk about the surprising overlap between our need for control and the clutter we hold onto. Here's some of what I shared with viewers that day. 

This is about relinquishing control to God — and about organizing and uncluttering our homes, our lives, and our faith. It's a subject I explored recently. 

Let's start with control: 

Last year someone very close to me experienced serious complications after surgery. What should have been a recovery turned into a two-month hospital stay, and ultimately, his passing. 

I was carrying the deep sadness of watching someone I loved slowly  fade away. There's no way to prepare yourself for that — for sitting  next to a hospital bed, hoping for improvement while quietly realizing the outcome may already have been decided. 

And naturally, during seasons like that, lessons surface. Growth happens — even when we resist it. Because if I'm being honest with  myself — and it took me some time to get there — I realized this  wasn't just about grief. It was about control. 

As my friend was dying, I was forced to come face-to-face with something I've struggled with my entire life: and that is-- I can't control everything. 

But I am a fixer. That's what they called me at home for years. You've got a problem? I can fix it. And most of the time — I did. I was good at it. Not only did I believe I could fix things — my family and friends  believed it too.  

If friends or family found themselves tangled in circumstances they couldn't sort through — I was there. Not just with a solution, but with a really good solution. I took pride in that.

I think when someone grows up surrounded by a lot of chaos — a lot  of distressing moments — that child learns early how to create order wherever they can. As they are growing into an adult that person will find ways to create their own order. Or essentially, control situations because growing up they felt things were so very out of control. 

That was me. 

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But the problem with being a fixer is that it doesn't always leave room for God to do what only He can do. 

During my friend's time in the hospital, I learned — painfully — that  there were things I simply couldn’t do. I didn't understand what was happening to his body. I couldn't make it better. I couldn't fix it. I had  to let go. And I had to let God finish a work He had already begun. 

Not everything is up to me. Not everything can be fixed by me. And  learning that — really learning it — changed me. And once that truth settled in, I began to look honestly at my own  life — and I realized just how many ways I exerted control. 

Now understand, my control came from a desire to help. But  underneath that help was often an inner turmoil — a constant hum of responsibility. Constantly asking myself, how do I make this better? What else can I do? What am I missing? 

But even in the midst of turmoil, God calls us to rest in Him. 

There were many times I did. But if I'm honest, there were just as  many times I did not. Or I would give a situation to Him — only to  take it back. We do that, don't we? Hand it over in prayer, then quietly reclaim it the moment things don't move fast enough or look the way we want them to. 

When you really think about it, it's arrogant. How in the world do we convince ourselves that we can control outcomes? Especially as Christians. We should know better. 

Proverbs 19:21 reminds us, "Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails."

And here's the part that stopped me cold: God was calling His child — my friend — home. To eternal life with Him. And if I'm being completely honest, I was almost working against that. Think about it. I felt like I needed to be part of the process that saved his earthly body, and yet all the while God was preparing to receive it. 

When you sit with that for a moment — you realize that's awfully presumptuous. 

During that time of awakening, I was reminded of something Oswald Chambers wrote in “My Utmost for His Highest”. In a July devotion, he talks about what he calls "calculating without God." He references Psalm 37:5: "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him; and He shall bring it to pass." 

Chambers wrote, "Don't calculate without God. God seems to have a delightful way of upsetting the things we have calculated on without taking Him into account… Haul yourself up a hundred and one times a day in order to keep your heart from being troubled, until you get into the habit of putting God first and calculating with Him in view." 

That hit me. I decided I needed to stop managing God and start truly trusting Him. Trusting Him entirely. And I couldn’t do that with conditions and backup plans. But with open hands. And an open heart. And that surrender, real surrender, was the hardest lesson of all. 

It was a lesson that carried me through the rest of 2025. And it's one I hope to continue deepening as I move forward. 

I spent years believing peace came from holding everything together – from tightening my grip. But I've learned that peace isn't found in managing more – It's found in letting go, making room for God and trusting Him with the outcome. 

And all of that was on my mind when I interviewed Joshua Becker about a few of his books; “Becoming Minimalist”, “Uncluttered Faith”,  and “Clutter Free with Kids”. 

Long before "minimalism" became a trend, Christian leaders were preaching the power of decluttering our lives. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, emphasized extreme simplicity and faithful stewardship. In his sermon “The Use of Money”, he urged believers to "gain all you can, save all you can, and give all you can," warning  that accumulating luxuries was a burden that "chokes" the spiritual  life.  

Wesley himself lived with very few possessions; he considered it a crucial part of living a holy life and therefore freeing his heart for God's work and for helping others. 

And here is a story that really struck home for me about Wesley:

Wesley had just finished hanging and admiring some artwork he had purchased for his room when one of the chambermaids came to his door. It was a very cold winter day, and he noticed that she had only a thin linen gown to wear for protection against that cold.  

He immediately reached into his pocket to give her some money for a coat and realized he had very little left after his purchases. It struck him then that the Lord was not pleased with how he had spent his money. He asked himself: "Will Thy Master say, 'Well done, good and  faithful steward?' Thou has adorned thy walls with the money that might have screened this poor creature from the cold! O justice! O mercy! Are not these pictures the blood of this poor maid?" 

I can’t stop thinking about that. When we engage in excess, there is little left for those in need. 

And that raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: are we conducting our lives, our choices, and our spending, in a way that reflects stewardship, or self-indulgence? 

This isn't about luxury for luxury's sake. It's about whether our appetites have quietly replaced our accountability. Because every dollar, every resource, every moment we consume beyond what we  need is something that can no longer be offered to someone else. 

In a culture that celebrates more, faster, bigger; restraint has  become radical. But restraint is also where compassion lives. And maybe the measure of a life well lived isn't what we accumulate, but being mindful of making room to give. 

I shared initially in that program with Joshua Becker about control and then segued into reducing clutter which, when accumulated, is really a type of control.  

And here's the thing — we don't usually call it control. We call it  being responsible. Prepared. On top of things. But let's be honest, sometimes it's not organization we're after but reassurance. 

Most of us aren't trying to control life because we're bossy or rigid. We're doing it because life feels loud and unpredictable. And when the world feels uncertain, control feels comforting. That's where clutter sneaks in. Because clutter isn't always about having too much stuff. Sometimes it's about holding onto options, just in case. Just so we don't feel caught off guard. 

So, we keep the extra bins and the backup supplies. The things we might need someday. Even when what we're really doing is trying to manage our anxiety with labels and shelves. 

I do want to point out that order is not the enemy. God is a God of order. But order without trust can leave us exhausted. Because while control promises peace… it never actually delivers it. 

Scripture reminds us that peace doesn't come from managing every outcome. Jesus told us not to worry about tomorrow, not because tomorrow doesn't matter, but because we aren't meant to carry it. 

Sometimes the most freeing thing we can do isn't organize more, it's loosening our hold. And maybe the goal isn't a perfectly controlled life, but one where we trust God enough to release what we don't need to carry. One where we make space — not just in our  homes, but in our hearts.

For more content like this, visit Real Life Network.

Optimism is insufficient to hold you up against the harsh reality of telling your daughters you won’t be alive long enough to walk them down the aisle or letting your parents know they’ll have to bury their son, Ben Sasse shared in The Wall Street Journal late last year.

Sasse is a 44-year-old former senator from Nebraska who was diagnosed with metastasized, stage 4 pancreatic cancer in December 2025 and given mere months to live. He is also a husband and father of three children.

“I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do,” Sasse said. “As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come,” he continued. “Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived.”

Sasse’s response to his diagnosis created shockwaves. While optimism is insufficient for Sasse, there’s one thing that isn’t: the hope, security, and comfort found in Jesus Christ.

“We [Christians] hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place,” he wrote.

For the believer, Sasse’s response is not confusing — it makes sense. A Christian’s inheritance is the perfect peace of Christ.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid,” Jesus reassures us in John 14:27.

“The way in which the former senator and his family are clinging to Christ in the midst of profound suffering is a vivid reminder for so many of us that a Christian’s hope is not rooted ultimately in favorable circumstances, but really in the character of God and the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” David Closson, the director of the Center for Biblical Worldview at Family Research Council, told The Washington Stand.

In a recent survey, the American Bible Society asked respondents if they turn to the Bible when they encounter difficulties in life or if they blame God for their troubles and reject any religious expression.

The organization found an increase in Bible reading, which directly results in an increase in hope for those who have put their trust in the Lord.

“From a biblical perspective, this makes sense. Scripture never promises that Christians will be spared suffering. In John 16:33 Jesus tells his followers that in this world you will have tribulation,” Closson said. “But Scripture consistently teaches that suffering has a way of stripping away false securities, and reminding us of our dependence on God, and then we could also say trials often expose the inadequacy of the other things we are tempted to trust in, such as our health, careers, finances, relationships, or sense of control.”

The report shows that those who experience difficult life circumstances and trauma are even more likely to read the Bible and rely on their faith for peace and healing than those who haven’t dealt with hardships.

Steadfast faith does not deny the reality of pain, Closson said. “It rather demonstrates that suffering does not have the final word.”

Bible reading was recorded to be 48% for those who faced a life-threatening illness or injury, like Sasse, compared to 37% for those who have not.

The report also found that 38% of those dealing with a life-threatening illness or injury said that their faith was “a great source of comfort to them” as they navigated “life issues,” compared to 31% of those not experiencing a tragedy.

“The mind regulates more effectively when attention is gently anchored to something safe, meaningful and true,” Joanna Hargreaves, a Christian psychotherapist, posted. “Regular Biblical Meditation soothes your amygdala. The amygdala is your brain’s alarm system triggering fear, stress, and anger.”

It is the natural tendency of the heart of the believer to turn to God in the midst of trials and tribulations. It is a mark of spiritual health to lean on the promises of eternity found in God’s word rather than looking to the world for comfort during times of impossible pain.

Closson also observed that unique opportunities for gospel ministry are presented when people are confronted with their own mortality. “As believers, we should be prepared to meet those moments with compassion and care and share the hope that’s ultimately found in the gospel,” he argued. “This report confirms something that Christians have believed for centuries, which is that while God does not waste suffering, he often does use it to draw people closer to himself.”

Because of sin, we live in a world where dads lose their lives to cancer too early, where divorce is common, and confusion about gender and sexuality runs rampant.

But God.

“The testimony of many believers is the suffering that has become the very context in which the promises of God become most precious. Bible passages that maybe seemed abstract in times of ease suddenly become more personal when read from a hospital room or while caring for a sick loved one,” Closson mused.

Take heart, for I have overcome the world, Jesus tells his followers. He calls us not to be discouraged. Sasse is a living example of what it means to embrace this. Amid the trial, he understands what we could all benefit from as a reminder: though we live in a fleeting world, there is an unfailing hope.

This article was originally written by Quinn Delamater and published on The Washington Stand. For more content like this, visit Real Life Network.

Patience is a 19-year-old Christian girl who has suffered far more grave injustices than most people are forced to endure in their lifetime.

In 2018, her father was killed by Fulani terrorists who broke into their house in the middle of the night.

In 2019, her grandfather and three of her extended relatives were killed in another Fulani attack on her village.

In 2020, she was raped by Fulani terrorists. At the time, she was just 14 years old.

In February 2026, her uncle also died at the hands of a Fulani terrorist.

Patience is from Plateau State, Nigeria, where I visited with the humanitarian organization Christian Freedom International a few months ago.

We were able to meet Patience and dozens of other Nigerian survivors of persecution and attacks. Many people rightly point out that the situation in Nigeria is complex, but staying next to a village known for facing repeated attacks and visiting survivors of persecution in their homes starts to bring the picture into focus.

I visited the small corner shop belonging to Amarachi, a middle-aged woman who could not be more ecstatic to see us. She showed us around her small shop — which she managed to start with the help of an organization who gave her seed money and taught her the basics about business.

After having us try a Nigerian snack, she wanted to show us her home several blocks away. In the modest rented house that she shared with her adult children, she told us about her husband’s death several years prior.

He was on his way home from a weekday prayer meeting at church when he was ambushed. Fulani militants rushed out of tall grass nearby and slaughtered him on the path. It was believed they were looking to target Christians leaving the church that day.

His wife and children were left to mourn their father’s death and do the best they could to carry on. His children are in college now. Amarachi had to provide for the family, so she opened her small store.

But Amarachi’s husband’s death wasn’t the end of the terror the family would face. Her village — located close to a Nigerian military lookout — routinely faces raids from Fulani militants. Typically, the militants target this village for kidnappings, charging steep ransoms to release the kidnapped victims. Families and churches must band together to offer a ransom and negotiate down to a feasible price.

One expert told me that kidnappings and ransoms are the militants’ largest source of income. These groups are often better equipped than the Nigerian military itself. When a large group of Fulani militants launches an attack, the military has been known to tell villagers to flee because they cannot defend against the militants.

My friend from Christian Freedom International asked Amarachi if she felt safe from local Fulani attacks since she had a courtyard door, main door to her house, and bedroom door — all with sturdy-looking locks. She gave us a confused look and said no. Our Nigerian driver explained that these would do little to stop attackers. He said they could break through any lock and gain entrance to any building. He called them “experts” at it.

I asked what she does during the overnight raids. Amarachi said that she simply lies in her bed and prays and tells her children to do the same. She doesn’t flee the village like many residents do during an attack. She believes that she has suffered enough, and God will not let her suffer more. So far, the militants haven’t targeted Amarachi’s house.

As an outsider, it’s difficult to grasp the normalized level of fear that must accompany daily life in a Christian village in Northern Nigeria. Yet, terrorism isn’t new for Nigerian Christians. The last few decades have seen an increase in the rise of Islamist terrorism and general violence against vulnerable Christian communities in Northern Nigeria. In 2014, the infamous terrorist group Boko Haram was at its height, seizing control of approximately 70,000 square miles in Northeast Nigeria.

In Jos, we met siblings Joy and Gabriel. They are now teenagers, but as children, they and their mother were captured by Boko Haram and held in one of their camps for over a month before being released. Their father was killed. Tears streaming down her face, Joy wanted to press through and share how Boko Haram destroyed her village in Northeast Nigeria, forcing those who survived to flee.

Patience, Joy, and Gabriel are now living at Christian Faith Institute (CFI), a non-denominational Bible school and ministry in Jos, Nigeria, where I was able to meet them. Founded by Australian missionaries Kent and Ruth Hodges, the ministry is dedicated to serving on the frontlines.

The Hodges, with their great African team, train Nigerians (and many from surrounding Sahel nations also impacted by terrorism), mainly from rural northern areas, to be pastors and missionaries themselves, equipping them to return to their villages across the north and share the good news of the gospel. At the Bible school, students are equipped with income-generating practical vocational training to be able to provide for themselves and their families. The Hodges also have a children’s crisis home and school that serves hundreds of kids, almost all of whom have faced persecution and terrorism themselves, like Joy and Gabriel.

While the violence in Nigeria has been ramping up for decades, it has gained more public awareness in the United States over the last few years. In November 2025, President Trump designated Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” on religious freedom. The designation was first instated in the last year of President Trump’s first term and undone in President Biden’s first year in office.

On Christmas Day in 2025, the United States launched strikes against ISIS in northwestern Nigeria. In May 2026, the U.S. worked with Nigerian forces to strike more ISIS targets, killing the global ISIS second-in-command. However, experts and those on the ground say that the situation for Nigerian Christians has worsened, not improved, in recent months.

Now, religious freedom advocates are hoping the Trump administration keeps up the pressure on the Nigerian government until its leaders take concrete action and successfully protect Christians in Northern Nigeria. Though the darkness and gravity of the situation in Nigeria feel overwhelming, ministries like CFI are a reminder that God is at work there and hope is not lost.

On the last day of my trip, I spent time with one mother whose daughter asked when the “crisis” will end. She told her daughter she didn’t know if it would end, but to pray for protection for their family and for comfort for those experiencing loss.

Note: Names of the victims featured in this piece have been changed for their protection.

This article was originally published by The Washington Stand and written by Arielle Del Turco. For more content like this, visit Real Life Network.

On June 29, Christians around the world will pause to observe the Day of the Christian Martyr. Church tradition marks this as the date the Apostle Paul was beheaded outside Rome. While history often highlights prominent men who laid down their lives for the gospel, there is another deeply convicting lineage of faith: the legacy of Christian women who refused to deny their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

This year, The Voice of the Martyrs is highlighting the story of Perpetua, a 22-year-old noblewoman martyred in ancient Carthage–modern-day Tunisisa–in A.D. 203. But Perpetua is far from alone. Across centuries, continents and cultures, bold, Godly women have faced their persecutors with unshakeable faith that should inspire us all.

As we prepare for Day of the Christian Martyr, here are five female martyrs whose stories remind us what it truly means to follow Christ at any cost.

Perpetua (Carthage, A.D. 203)

Perpetua was a young mother with a nursing infant when Roman officials arrested her for refusing to worship Rome’s false gods. Her father begged her to recant for the sake of her baby, but when asked at her trial, “Are you a Christian?” she simply replied, “I am a Christian.”

Led into the Roman arena, she was attacked by a rabid heifer. After being thrown to the ground, Perpetua calmly adjusted her tunic to protect her modesty and requested a pin to fix her disheveled hair. In Roman culture, loose hair was a sign of mourning and Perpetua wanted it known she was not mourning but rather joyfully preparing to meet her Creator. Ultimately, she guided the trembling sword of the gladiator to her own throat.

Perpetua's martyrdom inspired the church in Carthage to thrive and follow Christ at any cost.

Lizzie Atwater (China, 1900)

In the summer of 1900, the Boxer Rebellion claimed the lives of more than 32,000 Christians in China. Among them was Lizzie Atwater, a missionary who was pregnant when soldiers dragged her and 10 others out to be hacked to death.

Lizzie’s legacy lives on through her final letter home, where she calmly wrote, “Dear ones, I long for a sight of your dear faces, but I fear we shall not meet on earth. I am preparing for the end very quietly and calmly. The Lord is wonderfully near, and He will not fail me.”

Esther John (Pakistan, 1960)‍

Born as Qamar Zia in British-ruled India, she accepted Christ as a teenager after attending a Christian school. When her family later moved to Pakistan and tried to force her into a Muslim marriage, she fled to another city where she found a missionary who provided her with a Bible and a job working in an orphanage. After completing Bible training, she moved to Chichawatni, Pakistan, where she lived with American Presbyterian missionaries. She took up evangelism among rural women, teaching them the Scriptures and working alongside them in the fields before she was killed.

There was no investigation into her death, but she is remembered today as likely the first recorded martyr in Pakistan after the country gained independence from India.

Rocio Pino (Colombia, 2011)

Rocio Pino was known throughout her Colombian community for sharing the gospel with everyone she met. Her boldness drew the unwanted attention of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Late one night, two guerrilla fighters knocked on her door under the pretense of needing mechanical help. While her husband stepped away to assist, the men questioned Rocio about her identity. When they knew it was Rocio, they shot her three times and fled, leaving her husband and daughter to watch her take her final breath. Rocio knew the risks of the Great Commission, yet chose obedience over safety.

The inspiring stories of these mothers, teachers and evangelists should inspire us. Their sacrifice challenges those of us living in Western comfort. Are we willing to speak of Jesus when it might cost us our social standing, just as these women spoke of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ though it cost them their lives?

This July, I invite your church, family or small group to join in honoring heroes of the faith. VOM has prepared a free Digital Resource Kit, including a short film about Perpetua, sermon outlines and a guide for talking with children about persecution, all of which is available at Persecution.com/martyr.

Let us continue to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters who still face violent opposition today, and let us commit to living with the same defiant, joyful faith these extraordinary women carried into eternity.

Founded in 1967 by Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, The Voice of the Martyrs is a nonprofit, interdenominational missions organization serving persecuted Christians in the world's most difficult and dangerous places to follow Christ. For more information, visit https://www.persecution.com.

Henry VIII wanted one thing: an heir. What he got was a schism that reshaped Western Christianity. When the Pope refused his annulment, Henry declared himself Supreme Head of the Church of England and cut England loose from nearly a thousand years of Catholic tradition. While it was a selfish, political move, God had other plans. From that fracture came something that couldn't be controlled: the English Bible, put into the hands of the common people. Dr. Erwin Lutzer and Dr. Gregg Quiggle travel through England, visiting the places where this history was made. They explore the central question: whom does God use to advance His purposes? The answer they find is more uncomfortable and hopeful than you'd expect.

If the internet can be trusted, we spend one third of our life at the office.

That’s a lot of time.

Work is all around us. It’s unavoidable. For most people, work involves hanging out with coworkers, stressing over projects, and joining the rest of the commuters on the highway heading home. Jobs can feel mundane, boring, routine, unspiritual. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Your job is your ministry, whether it’s considered “spiritual” or not.

Every occupation has a chance to be more than clocking in and out every day. All good work, ecclesiastical or otherwise, is a launchpad for kingdom work. The danger happens when we believe “secular” work is less meaningful than “sacred” work (occupations deemed “religious,” such as biblical counselors, church leaders, ministry partners).

Just as it takes a calling to be a pastor or spiritual leader, it also takes a calling to be a technician or a car salesman or a high school teacher or a stay-at-home mom. Each person is equipped with unique talents to serve the body of Christ and minister to the world. To paraphrase the Apostle Paul, we can’t all be eyes or ears. Someone’s gotta be the toes. And the beauty is that we can only step forward when everyone is working at the thing they are best at. Just as it would be wrong to force an eye to carry the weight of the body, so it is also wrong to force toes to use glasses.

English writer Dorothy Sayers provocatively puts it this way: “Let the Church remember this: that every maker and worker is called to serve God in his profession or trade — not outside it. The Apostles complained rightly when they said it was not meet they should leave the word of God and serve tables; their vocation was to preach the word. But the person whose vocation it is to prepare the meals beautifully might with equal justice protest: It is not meet for us to leave the service of our tables to preach the word.”

The mistake of categorizing work into sacred and secular is that we steal dominion from God. In essence, we’re saying “religious” work glorifies the Lord more than “non-religious” jobs do not. But this isn’t the case. As Abraham Kuyper famously said, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” God seeks glory from the most mundane of tasks: eating and drinking (1 Cor 10:31). The God who blesses the farmer (2 Cor 9:10), cares for the field laborer (Ruth 2:19), and provides for tentmakers (Acts 18:3) is intensely interested in all good occupations. God demands more than just religious jobs; to him, all worthy jobs belong to the realm of sacred.

At the end of the day, it’s not what the job is (assuming it’s a non-sinful occupation), but rather how the job’s done. In Jesus’s parable of the Talents, it wasn’t ultimately about the sum of money the three servants received. The point was how they did — or didn’t — steward that money in the ruler’s absence. Jesus delights in faithfulness to small things. Erik Cooper, who (among many roles) serves as an executive leader for a nonprofit real estate company, comments, “There was never intended to be a sacred-secular divide. Whether we’re putting our hands to closing loans, making films, or accounting, it all matters to God. It is all part of his forming, filling, and subduing. It can all be redeemed by the finished work of Jesus because it was always intended to be part of God’s work in the world.”

As stewards in God’s kingdom, our calling is to labor well. God’s dominion extends far beyond the walls of church buildings. He cares about how you cultivate that one-third of your life. No task is too small or insignificant to go unnoticed by the King. Jon Bloom, co-founder of Desiring God, sums it up nicely, “According to 1 Corinthians 7:17-24, your job (assuming it’s not inherently unethical or immoral) is a ministry assignment from God. It may not be your career assignment, but it’s today’s assignment. And God wants you to carry out that assignment with dependent faith, diligence, and excellence.”

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This article was orginally written by Hannah Tu and published on The Washington Stand. For more content like this, visit Real Life Network.

Humans are lonelier than ever before. Even before the pandemic, almost five out of 10 U.S. adults reported experiences of loneliness. For young adults aged 15-24, time spent in-person with friends has fallen almost 70% from 2003 to 2020, from about two and half hours down to 40 minutes per day. The lack of meaningful interaction comes with a cost. Research finds that a lack of social connections can be as dangerous to our health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Humans were designed for community, not for isolation. But the solution is always trickier than it first appears.

In a culture that values independence and autonomy, making time for community seems tangential or even burdensome. For some, the mere thought of a social event depletes their personal energy battery. In a fallen world, relationships are complicated. People can be our best friends, and cruelest enemies. We get burned, withdraw, and then experience loneliness while making little effort to socialize.

Our society subtly reinforces the concept that reality is something to flee or escape; a bad dream to smother underneath a barrage of entertainment, information, or other forms of distraction. With the proliferation of smartphones, unplugging from the current situation and escaping into the digital sphere has never been so easy or so tempting. Additionally, many in-person connection points have now moved to screens. Online college options, virtual training, and remote jobs are increasingly prevalent. That’s not to say that online spaces are somehow bad or should be avoided; rather, with every advantage (think flexibility, cost, and time-savings), there is always a disadvantage (a sense of association without the anchor of relationships).

The issue is that we don’t reinvest the time and resources gained by the virtual world back into in-person relationships and interactions. The data provides the proof. In 2018, Pew Research Center found, “A majority of Americans (59%) say they feel some attachment to their local community, but only 16% say they feel very attached; 41% say they are not too or not at all attached to the community where they live. Adults in urban, suburban and rural areas report nearly identical levels of attachment to their local community.”

Our immediate community often lacks the tailoring, diversity, and ability to fast-forward that the digitalscape so frequently offers. Marketers call this phenomenon fragmentation: the splintering of groups defined by distinct preferences or requirements. When we get used to such customization to our preferences, we naturally grow more isolated from one another as we become increasingly defined by what sets us apart.

But there’s no easy fix. After all, relationships are the result of time, energy, effort, and being authentic about ourselves and with others (not to mention the emotional stakes that come with the drama and messiness of other sinners). But that’s the interesting thing. Redemptive history starts with two people in a garden and reaches its climax as a cultivated city: a sanctified arena when God’s creation and a multitude of people coexist in community. Human flourishing happens in fellowship, not in isolation. And more than ever, Christians need to lead by example.

Brian Brown understands this tension well. He’s the founder and executive director of The Anselm Society, a Colorado-based organization dedicated to a renaissance of the Christian imagination and recapturing the sense of shared community among kingdom-minded creatives. “We live in a culture that has made escapism into a virtue. We’re encouraged by a million cues to be anywhere but here, anyone but who God made us to be,” he remarked to The Washington Stand. “In the face of that, the person who chooses to show up has tremendous power — to see and be seen, to invite others in, to treat the local church and the dinner table as essentials rather than extras. But to do that, we have to dare to see ourselves as God sees us: as beloved bearers of His image.”

As images of God, we reflect him best in our collectiveness and diversity. It’s when the body of Christ comes together in fellowship that we get a more accurate glimpse at the vastness and depth of divine character (Ephesians 4:11-13; 15-16). Through the Messiah’s redemptive work, Christians have the opportunity, indeed the calling, to work towards restoration of the vision.

Despite the digital advances in communication and connection points, people are lonelier than ever before. It’s easy to run with the culture, burying ourselves in the endless mountain of “extra things,” perhaps even attempting to fill our own ache for meaningful connection. There is both pain and reward in pulling our heads out of the mountain and “showing up” in acts of simple relationship-building. “Showing up” doesn’t need to be elaborate, but it needs to be essential and intentional if we are serious about changing the tide of isolation.

In a hurting world, the simple act of being there for someone matters. If Christians are to be known by our love for one another (John 13:35; 2 Corinthians 13:11), we must be willing to demonstrate it.

This was orginally written by Hannah Tu and published on The Washington Stand. For more content like this, visit Real Life Network.

Fifty-four-year-old former Nebraska senator, husband, and father of three, Ben Sasse, was tragically diagnosed only six months ago with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and told he had three to four months to live. While the clinical trial that his doctors put him on has given him more time on earth than doctors predicted, the cancer has sadly continued to spread to his liver, lymph nodes, lung, and vascular system.

Each day that he lives is a miracle. Knowing this has caused Sasse to focus on what is truly important, and he has graciously shared his wisdom in several interviews recently. The following are five insights that we would all be wise to listen to and reflect upon.

1. Spend More Time with Family, Including Extended Family

In a recent extended interview on “60 Minutes,” Scott Pelley asked Sasse, “If you had another 30 years, what would your priority be?”

Sasse reflected, “I wish we’d had more babies. We have three great kids. I wish we had four or five. If I had 30 years left from now, I’d be working hard to take my zealous achiever daughters and try to figure out how you build something that’s a little bit like a family compound. How do you build something where you can have different generations come and go from it and have a thickness and a support system? How could you spend more time around your cousins or build the opportunity for your kids and your grandkids to spend more time around their cousins?”

He went on to share his regret of having a period where he spent too much time working and not enough time with his family: “I would travel a little bit less for work. … I spent way too many nights in hotel rooms. And I don’t know if my family even knows this, but I never really threw away any of my hotel keys. I’d come back from every trip, and I threw them in a box in a closet in my office, and there are thousands and thousands of hotel room keys, and sometimes I just look at it and feel a heaviness of regret. I would make better decisions about that.”

Later in the interview, Sasse expressed how tragic it is that people around the world have stopped having babies. He explained, “Having a baby is a bet on the future. And almost everywhere in the world — and the world is richer and richer and richer statistically than it’s ever been — people have decided, ‘Ah, actually babies are kind of an inconvenience.’ Babies have always been an inconvenience and the most glorious thing you can do to enrich your family and to make a bet on the future. … We’ve stopped making babies. We’ve decided that being distracted by a dopamine hit around a Candy Crush might be a good way to spend your time. Not if you’re fully human.”

2. Observe the Sabbath: Instead of Trying to Be Self-Sufficient, Rest in Almighty God

Similar to fellow Christian Charlie Kirk, Sasse sees the importance of following God’s Fourth Commandment to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. In an interview with Focus on the Family President Jim Daly, he shared:

“I have repented to my family. It started before this diagnosis, but we’ve talked about it a lot more intentionally since then. I have repented to my family about not having been a good leader about the Lord’s day. We never missed Sunday morning worship, but often by [2:00 or 3:00] in the afternoon, our hearts and affections and attentions were getting on to all the achievements we had to do, starting Monday morning and all the work we needed to do. And a lot of that work is important and meaningful, but man, the feast day of the soul is more important than I gave it attention to. And I now want my kids to view the glory of not needing to strive from Saturday night to Sunday night as an unbelievable blessing that we get to rest.

“Martin Luther’s great ‘A Mighty Fortress’ is based on Psalm 46, and if you read Psalm 46, there’s pretty obviously three movements. There’s you don’t have to fear anything. You’re going to be fine. God’s got this. And then this command: ‘Be still.’ It means stop trying to be self-sufficient. You get to be a child of the eternal king. And every Sunday, we can live that. I didn’t do that enough.”

Similarly, when Daly asked Sasse what advice he would give dads, he reiterated the importance of family worship time on the Sabbath:

“Let’s be humble with our kids and say … it’s glorious to get to reflect on the things of the Lord. What can we read together as a family this Sunday? How can we lock up our phones? How can we set aside time on the Lord’s Day to just linger and reflect back on the sermon, not have to get out of church the second it’s over, but go find the folks who are in need there or the visitors there. But I’d say two of the most practical operationalizable ones for us: we lock up our phones most of Sunday and we read aloud together a lot.”

3. Help Government Restrain Evil and Protect Freedoms

During CBS News’s “Things That Matter” townhall, a member of the audience asked Sasse how a Christian’s faith should impact his politics. He responded by emphasizing that Christians should seek to maintain order through government, not try to force religion on citizens. He explained:

“The secular sphere is still God’s space and God’s sphere, but it’s a question of whether or not explicit revealed theology is guiding our government. And I think that the purposes of government are to maintain order. It’s not to be theologically precise or accurate about what anybody should believe. The First Amendment is the most glorious inheritance anybody’s ever gotten in the history of government. Government is not the most important thing in the world, but it is glorious that our First Amendment has freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, protest or redress of grievances. But that means that what I want government to do is create a space that is free from violence.

“So people can worship as they see fit, whether I agree with them or disagree with them. As a neighbor, I might want to wrestle with theology with somebody, but I don’t want to use the state to accomplish theological ends. I want to maintain order for a secular sphere that is free from violence.

“So I don’t subscribe to views of geopolitics as God is accomplishing a precise thing in those places. I think our servant leaders are responsible for using their time in office to try to minimize violence, maximize order [and] human liberty. In my view, the future of geopolitics 10 or 40 years from now is going to be more U.S.-led or more Chinese Communist Party-led, and I would rather have open navigation of the seaways, freedom of religion, human rights, commerce, trade, transparent contracts. And so, I would rather have there be more U.S.-led freedoms for the world — but not because the U.S. is an eternal entity. The U.S. is just the best experiment in government we’ve ever known. But governments are going to pass away ultimately. At the end of days, when we all wrestle through and with the questions around our own mortality, there will be no more tears, there will be no more cancer, there will also be no more government. Government is a tool. It’s a really important tool, but it’s a time-limited tool.”

In his interview with Daly, he explained, “Government is about restraining evil. It’s not about the glory of what happens at worship. It’s not about the warmth around your dinner table where you’re telling your kids how much you love them and asking them about their day. Government is just about a framework for ordered liberty. And so our passions [have to] hold moderately to certain institutions like government because they’re important, but they’re passing away.”

4. Community Is Essential: Escape Social Media Echo Chambers and Learn from Others

Sasse believes that how society handles the current communication revolution (especially social media and AI) is crucial, telling Daly, “I think a hundred years from now, if the Lord hasn’t returned yet, when we look back on this moment, we’re not going to talk very much about public policy. We’re going to talk about the fact that social media created a completely different kind of information ecosystem. And there [are] these grand temptations to steal our attention all the time. We know that only about 12% of Americans will read a book this year.”

Sasse told Pelley, “We’re living through a technological revolution which is creating an economic revolution. Let’s be clear, we’re the rich middle-class median. Americans are the richest people any time and place in all of human history. And yet, the economic revolutions that we’re living through are unsettling culture and place,” he pointed out. “And so people are incredibly rich at a material level statistically. And yet we’re pretty impoverished spiritually and communally in that we don’t have fit community. We don’t know our cousins. We don’t know the people who live two doors away from us. And we don’t feel like we’re in a common cause with people right now. And politics wants to trivialize that by screaming there’s some bad political actor somewhere. And if only that person were ripped out of the public square, politicians could fix all this. No, neighbors are going to have to fix this.”

He went on to say, “I do think social media is one of the fundamental problems that we’re dealing with right now. Right now, almost all politicians’ impulses and incentives … is to go narrow but deep and to do a lot of fan service. It doesn’t encourage a lot of self-scrutiny. It doesn’t encourage a lot of humility. It doesn’t encourage someone saying, ‘You know what, I used to believe this, but I listened to somebody else, and I realized I was wrong, and I’ve learned this new thing. There’s no audience for that. You want to just say more of, ‘We’re definitely right, and they’re definitely wrong.’ And that tribalism makes us pretty stupid.”

He continued, “One of the glorious things about the American experiment is believing in souls that can do deferred gratification. We can do deliberation that says, ‘Maybe I don’t have all the answers right now at my fingertips, and maybe the glories of a big and diverse creation is I can learn a lot from my neighbors.’”

5. Put Your Trust in Sovereign God, the Source of Peace

In the “60 Minutes” interview, Pelley observed, “You are completely devoted to your faith: what’s known as Reformed Christianity or Calvinism. And one of the tenets of that faith is that God ordains everything. And I wonder why you think God has put you to this test?”

Sasse answered, “Death is wicked. Death is evil. Death is not how it’s supposed to be. And me getting a cancer diagnosis again is pretty small on the grand scheme of things, but it’s a touch of grace because it forces me to tell the truth. And the lie I want to tell myself is that I’m the center of everything, and I’m going to be around forever, and I can work harder and store up enough that I can atone for my own brokenness. I can’t. And so, I hate cancer, but I’m also grateful for it. I tell a lot more truth to myself than I used to … when I thought I was super omnipotent and interesting.”

The most emotional and inspirational part of these interviews came at the end of this conversation. Everyone should listen and learn from this man of deep Christian faith.

Pelley, on the verge of tears, managed to say, “I make no comparison to what you’re going through, but there was a moment on 9/11 at the World Trade Center that I knew I was dead. And in that lightning flash of an instant, the only thing that crossed my mind was leaving my family behind. And I wonder how you reconcile that.”

Sasse responded, “Yeah … I’m incredibly blessed. My wife Melissa … we’ve been married 31 years. …We’re going to be apart for a time. But she’s tough and gritty and theologically rooted, and she’s going to be fine. My daughters are 24 and 22, and they’re extraordinary. I want to walk them down the aisle when they get married,” he paused, getting emotional. “That’s not likely to be. That’s not the math of my timecard. My son, we have a providential surprise. He’s a decade younger than big sisters. He’s … going to be fine, and he’ll have other wise men and women to put a hand on his shoulder. But I’m super bummed to not be there at 16 and 18 and 20 years old in his life. I want to give him more advice than he wants, and I want to put my arm on his shoulder, and I want his shoulders to get taller. But it’s not a surprise to God.”

Pelley noted, “And God, you believe, has a plan.”

Sasse, without hesitation, answered, “Absolutely. There are no maverick molecules in the universe.”

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This article was written by Kathy Athearn and originally published at The Washington Stand. For more content like this, visit Real Life Network.

On April 26, I spoke at Hickory Hammock Baptist Church in Milton, Florida, about AI’s impact on children and families. After the service, parents and grandparents lingered with questions — not about geopolitics or corporate boardrooms, but about what was already happening inside their own households. They wanted practical steps to protect their children. Their concern is well-founded.

Picture the moment: a child sits at the kitchen table, struggling with homework. He doesn’t ask a parent — he opens an AI app and types the question. Within seconds, a clear, confident answer appears. No friction. No conversation. No one who loves him is involved at all. Across the room, his mother consults her own parenting app for guidance on how to handle his behavior. The moment looks utterly ordinary, and that is the problem.

The question those parents in Milton were asking is the right one: who is raising our children — the parent or the algorithm?

A Pew Research Center survey of 1,458 U.S. teenagers found that 64% now use AI chatbots — including 12% who have sought emotional support from these tools and more than half who turn to them regularly for schoolwork. A companion Pew report found that only 51% of parents believe their teenager uses AI regularly, while 30% have no idea. What parents don’t see, they cannot shape.

The Brookings Institution, drawing on input from more than 500 participants across 50 countries, concluded in January 2026 that the risks of AI in children’s education “overshadow its benefits” — because those risks strike directly at foundational development: attention, reasoning, social relationships, and independent judgment. Children often cannot recognize, question, or even see the technologies quietly shaping their earliest experiences. This is not simply a technology problem. It is an authority problem.

For generations, parents controlled which outside voices entered the home. A television could be turned off. A book could be closed. A teacher could be called. AI operates differently. It is embedded in the devices children already carry, available at any hour, and patient in ways no human being can sustain. It does not raise its voice or express disappointment. It does not ask what the child thinks before delivering an answer. Those qualities feel reassuring to a child — which is precisely what makes them quietly formative.

A RAND Corporation study found student use of AI for schoolwork jumped from 48 to 62% in just seven months during 2025, with 67% of students acknowledging the practice weakens their critical thinking. In one conversation I had recently, a college student told me she has watched her Christian peers consult AI the way they would a pastor. That is not a metaphor any parent or pastor should let pass without reflection.

There is a relational cost embedded in all of this that rarely gets named. Real formation — the kind that produces character, judgment, and wisdom — happens through friction. When a child shares a tough question with a parent, they gain more than any AI can offer: the parent’s wisdom, a strong relationship, and an appreciation for patience. AI systems are engineered to be responsive, affirming, and conflict-free — optimized for engagement, not formation. Engagement sustained over years becomes its own kind of formation, only one running in a vastly different direction.

Scripture understood this before algorithms existed. “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). That charge was given to parents — not to AI platforms. The Hebrew verb for “train” — chanak — carries the sense of dedication, of establishing a direction through habitual influence. Formation is cumulative. Every time a child turns to an algorithm instead of a parent — and every time a parent turns to AI for guidance on how to respond — that cumulative process is quietly redirected.

Artificial intelligence has no conscience. It is not accountable to God. It cannot love your child, discern his heart, or distinguish between what he wants to hear and what he needs to know. As I examine at length in “AI for Mankind’s Future,” unchecked reliance on algorithmic systems erodes the very human judgment those systems were meant to supplement. The voice is confident, the answer is instant, and children are not equipped to evaluate what they are being handed. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). A child trained by habit of leaning on an algorithm rather than a parent is being pointed in a fundamentally wrong direction — not by malice, but by the steady drift of convenience.

Parents who think they are managing this problem by monitoring screen time are already behind it. Treating AI like a hazard to be filtered addresses the symptom while missing the cause. A more effective response means being present in the conversation — asking the question before the AI app gets to it, discussing what the app provided, modeling the slower and more honest work of thinking through a problem. It means teaching children that truth is different from a confident answer delivered in two seconds by a machine. Moses understood the principle: “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way” (Deuteronomy 6:7). The home was always the first classroom. Parents have always been the first teachers. AI has not changed that assignment — it has only made it more urgent.

Pastors need to address this with the same directness they bring to any other threat to spiritual formation. AI is shaping how young people think, relate to authority, and understand where truth comes from — and that is not a secondary concern. Policymakers need to move beyond phone bans — a political band-aid on a deeper wound — and confront the design incentives that make these systems so compelling, because removing a phone from a classroom does not fix a platform engineered to capture students’ attention the moment school ends.

In “The New AI Cold War,” I argue that the future security of this nation depends as much on the character and discipline of its people as on its technology. That argument starts in the home. A generation shaped more by algorithms than by parents will not have the judgment, resilience, or relational depth to defend what they have inherited.

The AI is already in your home. It is neither neutral nor passive, and it is not going away. The parents who understand that clearly will still have a chance to answer the question those families in Milton were asking. The ones who are still waiting to take it seriously may find the answer has already been made for them.

This article was originally written by Robert Maginnis and published on The Washington Stand. For more content like this, visit Real Life Network.