Dr Paul Allen

Your darkness can one day bring someone light. A person who’s been through a divorce has the compassion and words needed to help somebody going through a divorce. A person who’s been through abuse, rape, or an addiction can genuinely understand how to help someone else in a similar situation.  And because you made it, God will cause your wounds to glow in the dark of somebody else’s life. And when you begin to share your story with them, hope will get in their soul, and they will start to believe that they can make it.   Don’t waste what you’ve gone through or allow it to make you bitter. If God lets you walk through it, it’s because He’s still God and has a plan. On five different occasions, the Apostle Paul was beaten with 39 stripes. That’s 195 scars on his body. Paul said, “Three times I was beaten with rods.  One time, I was stoned and left for dead. Three times, I suffered shipwrecks. I knew what it was to be afloat in the ocean a full day and night. I thought ...

Not long ago, I received a moving letter from a friend who is working as a missionary in a Muslim portion of the Philippines. He wrote, We heard gunshots the other day and the sounds of running feet as people rushed by our ministry center. The coffee and rubber farms were on fire. We were in shock because we were told it was most likely intentionally done. Many tears were shed, but we prayed that what people intended for evil God would work for good. We don’t know how, but because God is good, it should work out so. So, we could sleep. The last words of his letter echo Psalm 127:2: “He gives to his beloved sleep.” If we’re awed by the fact that Almighty God loves us and that he’s working all things toward our best interests, then we really can be free from anxiety. Isaiah 26:3 tells us, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.” Isn’t that wonderful? If our minds are focused on the Lord Jehovah, then our hearts can be at peace. Realities of Li...

At the end of Psalm 86, David even fears for his existence, and the main message of the psalm is how to lay hold of God in times of personal need. The key to the whole psalm is the last phrase of verse 11: “Unite my heart to fear your name.” There is nothing like pressure to show how divided our hearts are. It is as if the circumstantial pressure exposes the spiritual fault lines of our hearts. The structure of the psalm is like a sandwich; verses 1–7 and verses 14–17 are a cry for help, and in between, in verses 8–13, is the meat with a section on the praise of God. The psalm begins with David pleading for God to answer him:  “Incline your ear . . . answer me . . . be gracious . . . gladden my soul” (Ps. 86:1, 3, 4). He addresses himself to the “LORD,” using the name that God revealed to His covenant people. David recognizes that he is in a relationship with God. It is as if he is saying: “This is who I am, and this is who You are, so Lord, be all that You are to me.” As we move i...

I think it’s fair to say that the year 2020-21 were stressful years for the global population. The COVID-19 pandemic was a large part of that, but people are also worried about the government, the economy, their health, their jobs, their loved ones, and their futures. In 2022. Omicron arrived. A survey of 3,013 adults conducted on behalf of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 2020 showed stress levels in American adults as the highest since these levels started being recorded, and “marks the first significant increase in average reported stress” since the survey began in 2007. According to the APA, parents are more anxious than adults without children, reporting stressors related to education, basic needs, access to health care services, and missing out on major milestones. The poll found that nearly 80% of adults say the coronavirus pandemic is a significant source of stress in their lives, while 60% say the number of issues America faces is overwhelming to them. Australia...

We live in a world in which we have so many technological advances—so many things at our disposal to make our lives easier—from microwaves and dishwashers to cell phones and Siri. Yet, in the midst of all these things that exist to make our lives easier and more simplified, it still seems that our lives are overwhelmingly complicated.  Many people are stressed out, confused, and full of anxiety. Counseling centers have become as prolific as coffee shops, and most pastors would acknowledge that there are more people in the church who need counseling than there are resources to adequately care for them. We live in a world that abounds with anxiety. But as Christians, we can turn to the Bible for God’s solution to anxiety: focusing on Christ and the hope we have in Him. And here, we read Romans 8:18–30 as the primary text for our encouragement. The trials and challenges we endure are in many ways not new. “There is nothing new under the sun”—including anxiety (Eccl. 1:9). The first-ce...

You, Will, Have Trouble It is a guarantee that we will have trouble in this world as Jesus himself did. But, with his power and presence in our lives, we are called to endure and thus shine the light of Christ in a dark world. Be encouraged by these passages and commentary from the ESV Study Bible. Romans 8:35–39 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The quotation from Psalm 44:22 shows that the difficulties listed in Romans 8:35 do strike Christians...