While serving in Iraq, Courtney Birdsey experienced the protective hand of God, forever changing her. She says:

On one of [our] missions, my unit made a return trip to Samarra, north of Baghdad, to gather data. As we were leaving the town, the Humvee I was riding in approached a tank from behind. A soldier riding on the tank gave us an urgent "turn around" signal. We didn't hesitate to follow orders. ...

In 1993, Lt. Col. Gary Morsch joined the Army Reserves as a doctor to care not only for U.S. soldiers, but also for wounded civilians and prisoners of war. In 2005, as a part of the war in Iraq, he was called up to serve as the field doctor for a battalion near the Iranian border. He would take care of soldiers in the medical tent, provide supervision and training to eight combat medics, and visit ...

Editor's note: Though you might not be persuaded by the information below, it still has great illustrative potential. D'Souza's article might provide an intriguing way into a sermon that deals with why God allows bad things to happen. It might be something you want to contend with or elevate as a possibility. It might be a way to raise several other questions about why bad things happen. Or, taking ...

Have you heard about Pocket God? It's one of the top-selling video game applications for Apple's iPhone. Here's the game description found on iTunes:

What kind of god would you be? Benevolent or vengeful? Play Pocket God and discover the answer within yourself. On a remote island, you are the all-powerful god that rules over the primitive islanders. You can bring new life, and then take it away just ...

On April 18, 1942, Army Corporal Jacob DeShazer boarded a bomber plane with his pilot, Lieutenant William Farrow, and a co-pilot, navigator, and rear gunner. Their mission was to bomb Tokyo and its surrounding cities. When the mission was accomplished, they were to land on the shores of enemy territory and elude the opposing forces as they awaited further instructions. The bombing was a success, but ...

The omnipotent God, primal power of the world, being himself supremely good, could not permit anything evil in his works, were he not so all-powerful and good as to be able to bring good even out of evil.

As many in Britain have reflected on the life and leadership of Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1997–2007), stories have emerged concerning his faith. A 2008 issue of Time magazine featured one particularly moving story from Blair's past:

Blair is deeply religious—the most openly devout political leader of Britain since William Ewart Gladstone more than 100 years ...

My youth group was hundreds of miles from home on a mission trip in New Orleans. We were piled in the van on the way back to the motel when someone yelled out, "I get the pay phone first!"

"Why?" another kid asked. "Who do you need to call?"

"It's Father's Day, dork!" came the reply.

Father's Day. I hadn't thought about that in years. As everyone scrambled for coins and planned out a calling schedule, ...

In 1993, Lt. Col. Gary Morsch joined the Army Reserves as a doctor to care not only for U.S. soldiers, but also for wounded civilians and prisoners of war. In 2005, as a part of the war in Iraq, he was called up to serve as the field doctor for a battalion near the Iranian border. In an article for Today's Christian, he shares a story of something that happened on the last day of his tour of duty: ...

The word judgment carries negative overtones for a good many people in our liberal and postliberal world. We need to remind ourselves that throughout the Bible God's coming judgment is a good thing, something to be celebrated, longed for, yearned over. It causes people to shout for joy and the trees of the field to clap their hands. In a world of systematic injustice, bullying, violence, arrogance, ...