It all began, Carson reflects, with the aim of helping to "restore the center of historic, confessional Christianity" in the broadly Reformed heritage. Officially constituted with a Council and Foundation Documents around the time of the 2007 National Conference, TGC has since seen the birth of a website with about 4 million monthly pageviews, more than a dozen Regional Chapters, a biennial Women's Conference, and an International Outreach initiative dedicated to relieving theological famine around the globe.

"We were initially thinking more in terms of conferences than of the web," Keller admits. "It seems we've created a space that's made people think, 'This is broad enough and yet focused enough that I can really learn from this group.'"

Regarding TGC's international vision, Carson explains, "We've been clear from the beginning that we don't want [overseas groups] to be American-controlled." Instead of an "American hegemony that's some sort of new worldwide mission," the hope is simply to engender "strategic and mutually encouraging" fellowships overseas. As Keller remarks, it's vital for such TGC-inspired partnerships to be and remain indigenous.

"We certainly make our share of mistakes," Peays acknowledges, "but we're grateful to God for where we are now, and we hope to honor him going forward." And, Lord willing, Carson adds, "This is only the beginning." May God grant us strength, humility, and wisdom to equip and encourage his saints in the days to come, to the praise of his glorious grace.

What Is the History and Future of TGC? from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

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Though the joys are many, there are days when motherhood wears me down to the core. Some days, I'm not even sure I'll make it through to bedtime. When night time finally does come, my head hits the pillow hard, and I wonder what I accomplished all day. My heart sighs because I know that tomorrow will most likely be a repeat of the same. Because the job is never done, I'll wake up the next morning to the house still in disarray and mountains of laundry to wash. And based on the sniffles I've heard lately, certain illness looms on the horizon.

Some seasons of motherhood feel more intense and exhausting than others. It's easy to become discouraged by the endless cycle of cleaning up the messes—physical and emotional. Joy sometimes feels like a thing of the past and just out of reach. We can feel isolated and alone. We may question our qualifications to be a mother or think we've failed our children.

The truth is, motherhood is hard, and we can't do it on our own. As John Piper wrote in A Godward Life, "I need help. Always. In everything. I am simply kidding myself if I think I can move an inch without God's help." Just as we cannot live without water, we cannot do anything apart from Christ, including motherhood. "Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5).

Rather than swim in guilt or wish life were different, we need to go to the Source of our strength, joy, and peace. We need to drink from the living water that only Christ provides. There we'll find that the truths of the gospel are always within reach, always ready to refresh, remind, and restore.

Jesus died to free us from trying to do life on our own. He came to redeem us from slavery to sin and restore our relationship with the Father. He faced every temptation and sorrow that we face, yet lived a sinless life. The grave could not hold him, guaranteeing a future resurrection for all who trust in Christ. As these truths saturate our thirsty soul, we find the nourishment and strength we so desperately need.

And it's because of Jesus that we can go before the throne of grace in confidence to find the help we need (Hebrews 4:16). If you are like me and feel tired and worn, this prayer is for you:

*********************

Dear Father in heaven,

I come before you weary and beat down by this long day. Being a mother can be so hard. I often feel helpless and inadequate. Part of me wants to complain, but then I remember the extent to which you were beat down, and I'm struck quiet. I remember that you are the Man of Sorrows and that you understand just how hard life can be. I also remember that you collect all my tears and care about my troubles, trials, and fears.

The Book of Hebrews tells me I can come to you in confidence and find the grace and mercy I need. And so I come to you now to lay all these burdens at your feet. I feel so overwhelmed by the details of life. It seems like I can never get ahead. Just when I clean up one mess, another one pops up somewhere else. Some days I wonder if I'm really cut out for motherhood.

I know I failed to glorify you today. I failed to love as you love me. I failed to extend the grace you've given me. Forgive me for striving in my own strength. Forgive me for not finding my complete satisfaction in you and seeking it elsewhere. Each of these failures reminds me of just how much I need a Savior. Today reminds me that I need Jesus more than I did yesterday and that tomorrow I will need him even more.

I'm so thankful that there is so much of you to give. You're never tired or weary. Even while I sleep, you remain at work. Nothing happens outside your knowledge and will. You're never stretched beyond what you can handle. And the well of your grace never runs dry.

Because of what Jesus did for me, I ask that you create in me a clean heart. Renew a refreshed spirit within me. Give me gospel strength to get through the day. Open my eyes so that I see your hand at work in the mess of my life. Be my constant in my fluctuating emotions. Keep the gospel ever before me and make it a reality in my daily life as a mother.

I pray that tomorrow you would be with me in all the muck and mire of motherhood. Help me to find my joy in you and not in my circumstances. May I remember that even when it feels otherwise, you are always with me, will never leave me, or forsake me. Tonight I'll sleep in peace knowing that even when I lose my grip, you never let go of me. And I'll open my eyes in the morning to find mercy, fresh and new, ready for the taking.

It's because of Jesus and in Jesus' name that I pray, amen.

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On My Shelf is a new feature designed to help you get to know various people through providing a behind-the-scences glimpse into their lives as readers.

I corresponded with Tullian Tchividjian, senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, about what's currently on his nightstand, books he re-reads, his favorite fiction, and more.

What's on your nightstand right now?

My nightstand is a mess—the biggest eyesore in our bedroom (according to my wife). I have about 30 books piled up on top of each other. I'm constantly reading, and I'm always reading more than one book at a time. I have everything from books I've been asked to endorse to books I'm consulting for my current sermon series to books I'm reading for fun.

I'm also a curious reader, which means I'm always reading books by people just to find out how they write and what they say about certain things—which means I'm not simply reading books by people within my theological tradition. One of my concerns about some who would consider themselves "reformed" is that they only read books by other "reformed" people. This, in my opinion, is a big mistake. And when some do read books outside their own theological tradition, they only do so with an eye to critique instead of an eye to learn. At least this was my mistake for far too many years. I graduated from a well-known reformed seminary (and am unbelievably grateful for the education I received there), and I never heard of any of the books, theologians, or scholars I list below (except one). I have, therefore, greatly varied my reading over the past five years or so and am reading many more books by writers, thinkers, and scholars outside of my theological  tradition. Seven years ago I heard Tim Keller say, "When you read one thinker, you become a clone. Two thinkers, you become confused. Ten thinkers, you begin developing your own voice. Two or three hundred thinkers, you become wise."

So a few books on my nightstand right now include: Humble Orthodoxy by Joshua Harris, Luther: An Introduction to His Thought by Gerhard Ebeling, The Foolishness of Preaching by Robert Capon, On Being a Theologian of the Cross by Gerhard Forde, The Mockingbird Devotional by Ethan Richardson and Sean Norris (eds.), The Genius of Luther's Theology by Robert Kolb and Charles Arand, This American Gospel by Ethan Richardson, Between Noon and Three by Robert Capon, The Reconstruction of Morality by Karl Holl, Living by Faith by Oswald Bayer, Handling the Word of Truth by John Pless, and How to Talk So People Will Listen by Steve Brown.

I'm learning, in the words of Eugene Peterson, that "discipleship is a process of paying more and more attention to God's righteousness and less and less attention to our own." The way many of us think about sanctification is, well, not very sanctified. In fact, it's terribly narcissistic. We spend too much time thinking about how we're doing, if we're growing, whether we're doing it right or not. We spend too much time pondering our spiritual failures and brooding over our spiritual successes. Somewhere along the way we've come to believe that the focus of the Christian faith is the life of the Christian.

Ironically, I've discovered that the more I focus on my need to get better, the worse I actually get—I become neurotic and self-absorbed. Preoccupation with our performance over Christ's performance for us actually hinders spiritual growth because it makes us increasingly self-centered and morbidly introspective—the exact opposite of how the Bible describes what it means to be sanctified. Sanctification is forgetting about yourself. "He must increase but I must decrease" (John 3:30) properly describes the painful sanctification process. "Decreasing" is impossible for the one who keeps thinking about himself. As J. C. Kromsigt said, "The good seed cannot flourish when it is repeatedly dug up for the purpose of examining its growth." Thankfully, the focus of the Bible is not the work of the redeemed but the work of the Redeemer. The gospel frees us from ourselves. It announces that this whole thing is about Jesus and dependent on Jesus. The good news is the declaration of his victory for us, not our "victorious Christian life." The gospel asserts that God's final word over a Christian has already been spoken: "Paid in full."

There are four books I've re-read a few times in the last two years: Living by Grace by William Hordern, The Hammer of God by Bo Giertz, Who Will Deliver Us? by Paul Zahl, and Sanctification by Harold Senkbeil. All four of those books have been extremely helpful to me personally and theologically. They've helped me better understand my sin, God's grace, and the distinction between the law and the gospel. They've guided me through deep and wide pastoral challenges and, I think, made me a better preacher, pastor, and counselor.

What are your favorite fiction books?

I'm not a huge reader of fiction. I consider that to be a weakness in my reading habits, not a strength. I would strongly encourage readers of theology to increase their reading of fiction. When our reading habits become one-dimensional, our thinking becomes one-dimensional. But three fiction books that have profoundly influenced me are Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, The Hammer of God by Bo Giertz, and The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis.

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1. Populations and subpopulations can change through three processes: fertility (the number of children that women have), mortality (the number of deaths that occur), and migration (the movement of persons from a locality of origin to a destination place across some pre-defined, political boundary). Demography is the statistical study of human populations and these changes.

2. Replacement level fertility is the level of fertility at which a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next. In developed countries, such as the United States, replacement level fertility can be taken as requiring an average of 2.1 children per woman. This means that 100 women will bear 211 children, 103 of which will be females. About 3% of the alive female infants are expected to die before they bear children, thus producing 100 women in the next generation. In countries with high infant and child mortality rates, however, the average number of births may need to be much higher.

3. Total fertility rate represents the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children in accordance with current age-specific fertility rates. From 2008-2012, the fertility rates for the countries with the highest population was: China (1.6); India (2.6); U.S. (1.9); Indonesia (2.1); Brazil (1.8).

4. Fertility rates began falling in Western, industrialized countries in 1968 (oral contraceptive, first introduced in 1960, had become widely used by then). By 1975, every Western First World nation was below the replacement rate. Over the course of the next two decades, massive fertility decline spread worldwide: In 1979, the global fertility rate was 6.0; today it's 2.52 and still declining.

5. Most population models suggest we are currently at "peak child," that is, the world currently has about 2 billion children and that number is likely to decline over time, not increase. Because of this, the world population will peak at 10 billion before declining.

6. In the U.S., the largest population group — whites who are not Hispanic — recorded more deaths than births last year for the first time ever. Between July 2011 and July 2012, an estimated 12,400 more white Americans died than were born. (The number of whites still increased slightly last year because immigration more than compensated for the gap between births and deaths.) Demographers have long expected that deaths among the non-Hispanic white population ultimately would outpace births, but they didn't expect it until the end of the decade.

7. Sub-replacement level fertility rates can have a wide-ranging effect on everything from marriage to sex trafficking to global conflict. For example, demographic projections suggest that by 2030 more than 25 percent of Chinese men in their late 30s will never have married. As demographer Nicholas Eberstadt points out, "The coming marriage squeeze will likely be even more acute in the Chinese countryside, since the poor, uneducated, and rural population will be more likely to lose out in the competition for brides. Beijing will have to determine how it will cope with a growing demographic of unmarried, underprivileged, and, quite possibly, deeply discontented young men."

8. Countries can sometimes offset low fertility rates by increasing immigration. According to Eberstadt, the U.S. population, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections, is set to grow by 20 percent, or over 60 million people (from 310 million to 374 million), between 2010 and 2030. By such projections, the population growth rate of the U.S. will nearly match India's. Virtually every age group in the country is set to increase in size over the next 20 years. Unlike all other affluent countries, the United States can expect a growing pool of working-age people (a moderate but steady rise averaging 0.5 percent per year over the next 20 years).

9. According to the World Bank, the nations with the largest proportions of unbelievers had an average annual population growth rate of just 0.7% in the period 1975-97, while the populations of the most religious countries grew three times as fast.

Recent posts in this series:

9 Things You Should Know About Fathers and Father's Day

9 Things You Should Know About Mothers and Mother's Day

9 Things You Should Know About Pornography and the Brain

9 Things You Should Know About Planned Parenthood

9 Things You Should Know About the Boston Marathon Bombing

9 Things You Should Know About Female Body Image Issues

9 Things You Should Know About the Gosnell Infanticide and Murder Trial

9 Things You Should Know About Edith Schaeffer

9 Things You Should Know About Duck Dynasty

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After nine months of school, activities, and friends, the four Wilkin kids are once again fully present in our home. Our summer will be marked by some travel (cousins who need to enjoy our company), some learning (good books to be read, good recipes to try), and some household chores that never seem to get done during the school year (it cannot be an accident that the number of dirty windows in my home divides neatly by four). But the highest item on our summer agenda, and the one we all look forward to the most, is rest. There will be time to listen to the cicadas.

Here is a remarkable thing about the Christian faith: we have a God who commands us to rest. Our God commands us to hold still, to cease from labor, to actively enter into repose—not merely as a means to regain our strength, but as an act of worship.

The gods of other religions and the god of self, these demand ceaseless toil. To please these gods, worshipers work incessantly at the business of self-denial, approval-seeking, pilgrimage—repeated rites that strive to prove the worth of the supplicant and earn the favor of the deity.

Those who seek the approval of lesser gods commit themselves to a course of utter exhaustion. But not the Christian. In our obedient observance of rest, the work of our Savior is understood most clearly. We rest not as an attempt to earn his approval, but as an assent that his approval has already been earned in the sun-going-down, Sabbath-initiating work of Christ on the cross. Christ worked that we may rest. He, in a gathering dusk, exhaling the first note of a blood-bought chorus of infinite rest.

The God who grants us soul-repose commands our worship in the form of bodily rest. The worshiper is blessed in obedience. Restored and ready, he resumes the effort of tilling his corner of the garden. More importantly, he's reminded that both the garden and also the one who tills are contingent and derived, depending every moment on the sustaining breath of the Creator. He is thereby mercifully relieved of his idolatrous, exhaustion-breeding belief that the work of his hands upholds the universe in part or in whole.

This is a good and timely reminder for our family.

Nothing obstructs our ability to fulfill the Great Command like exhaustion. In the daily busyness of life-as-usual, the love of many grows cold. But the rest the Lord ordains for his people is a communal rest, a rest that places them in company with one another, hands emptied of labor, minds emptied of cares. Because emptied hands can deal the next round of spades, or make a dandelion chain, or pass around the popsicles. And emptied minds can join in the conversation bubbling up from the back of the minivan.

Love grows warm once again in the emptied spaces of rest. We remember our love for the One who sustains us, we recall our love for the ones who surround us. Worshipful rest renews our love for God and for others. It is the rest that restores our souls.

Summer is, for our family, a time when the worship of work gives way to the worship of rest. We will not fill these precious days with more ways to be distracted, exhausted, and pulled in a thousand directions. The evensong of the cicadas invites us to join in the worship of loving God and each other with renewed intent, awash with gratitude that our souls find rest in the finished work of Christ.

Well did Shakespeare observe that "summer's lease hath all too short a date." Before we know it, the season of work will return to claim its laborers. So we will heed the invocation of the cicadas to rest, rest, rest—knowing that our rest here is as vital as it is brief, longing for that future rest when our Sabbath-song of worship, once raised, will redouble and reverberate across eternity.

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In the parable of the sower and soils (Matthew 13), Jesus compares the seeds that fell on good soil versus the seeds that fell on rocky or shallow soil. If we don't faithfully prepare the soils of youth ministry, we should not expect to reap a harvest. So how do we prepare the church for effective youth ministry? Based on 15 years as a youth pastor and a dozen more consulting with churches and training youth pastors, I offer these four key ingredients.

First, youth ministry needs a profile. The average congregation is not thinking about youth, especially if there are not many in their midst. So we need to draw attention to the teens in the congregation and the community. Think about the vast number of youth who have no contact with the church. Raise the issue of youth ministry in your congregation and in time it will be on the hearts of most of your members. The issues we talk about become our priorities. Mention students in prayers during services and ask the congregation to be praying for youth. Use church newsletters and bulletins to highlight youth-related news. 

Second, youth ministry needs a vision. Bill Hybels in his book Courageous Leadership defines vision as "a picture of the future that produces passion." A vision is more than just a good idea. It has the potential to captivate the attention of a congregation in a way that stirs people to action. A vision for youth ministry is more than just stating that we want more youth in the church. More compelling is the idea that we want to reach a generation of young people for Christ. The task needs to be understood as vital and urgent. In order for people to get excited, they to see the need and potential.

Fifteen years ago, Holy Cross Church outside Charleston, South Carolina, was a small congregation of mostly older people. At that time, the minister explained to the congregation that they needed to hire a youth minister. The response was overwhelmingly negative based on the obvious fact that there were no young people in the church. As the minister explained, that's exactly why they needed a youth minister. Today Holy Cross has two full-time youth ministers working exclusively with teenagers and the largest ministry to teens in its community.

It is the task of church leadership not only to declare that youth work will be a priority, but also to share a picture of what that will look like.

Third, youth ministry needs a strategy. How will we get to where we want to be? Developing strategy takes much prayer and time. Good youth ministry does not appear overnight. A church must think through realistic and measurable steps in order to begin or develop the necessary work. Avoid the trap of getting so caught up in the excitement of the vision that everyone expects a quantum leap forward. A realistic timetable will consider the challenge and count the cost. We develop strategy when we can divide the big picture into manageable sized smaller pictures. At the same time we also have to know how to answer the question, "What will we do when we get there?" 

The strategy must be driven by our understanding of Scripture before we consider the cultural context. We see in 1 Thessalonians 2 what Paul ministry's strategy looked like: build relationships, proclaim the gospel, and teach Scripture. We ought to avoid thinking in terms of creating programs but rather build our strategy around proclamation and discipleship in the context of relationships. The strategy must be communicated to the whole congregation. People respond to opportunities to get involved when they know and are excited about what is going on.

Finally, youth ministry needs support. Youth leaders must know the church is behind them. There is nothing more empowering than knowing firsthand that church members are praying every day for me and for the youth. When youth ministry is a priority we make resources available to the work. Youth should not be relegated to the worst rooms in the church. Many youth pastors feel like second-tier staff and would leave youth ministry if not for the call of God. Youth ministers should be featured up front regularly and, where appropriate, preach occasionally in their churches. Exposure allows the congregation to get to know them. Youth themselves must be a visible part of congregational life. The church needs to see and hear from those whose lives are being changed by the gospel. 

Setting up the church for success in youth ministry is a learning experience. The uniqueness of each congregation—shaped by location, population, and much more—suggests that one size does not fit all. The process must be bathed in prayer and shaped by Scripture. This is God's work and not some program, scheme, or cultural trend.

Questions to consider:

• What do we want the church to look like in five years in regards to youth ministry?
• Are our current structures or the way we do ministry leading us there?
• How will we measure the effectiveness of our structure and strategy?
• Is God's Word and prayer guiding our youth ministry efforts?

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Today I happen to be surrounded by ten or so worship leaders from surrounding communities who were invited to come together to share their trade secrets and insider knowledge about all things related to the ministry of worship arts. It's no surprise that the conversation moves from light chit-chat about media and tech, to horror stories involving computer crashes, bad drummers and why church organs are actually ironic and awesome again. Up to this point, I've admittedly been a quiet, distracted observer, checking my I-Phone in between sips of my Psalted Caramel Mocha when suddenly the conversation shifts to who among us brings in musicians to lead worship who are not, well, saved.

Ok, now they have my attention.

To keep reading visit our new TGC Worship blog.

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The Background: On Thursday, Sen. Paul said, "It's clear that American taxpayer dollars are being used in a war against Christianity." Paul said the U.S. war in Iraq led Christians to flee a secular country that had otherwise been "a relatively safe place for Christians," and that Christians are now being hunted in nearby nations like Syria. "These countries are not our allies, and no amount of money is going to make them so," Paul said. "It makes no sense. Should we be sending F-16s and tanks to Egypt when (President Mohammed) Morsi says Jews are descendants of apes and pigs?"

Sen. Rubio took a different approach, referring to Matthew 5, in which God calls upon his people to be a light in the world. Rubio said, "If America's light is extinguished, there is no other light. We are called not to hide our light but to shine it. If we lose the will ... there is nothing to replace us."

"This call for us to silent ourselves and stop speaking about the values we know work is a big mistake," Rubio said.

"If we're encouraged to be silent ... then who will say it instead of us?" he said. "Who will be the salt if we are not the salt?"

Why It Matters: If our options are these two choices—protecting Christians or promoting Christian values—which should we choose? While Christians may differ on the question—and some will claim we should choose neither—it seems the morally responsible answer is that we should choose both.

Some Christians in America believe, as do most secularists, that religious belief has no role to play in shaping foreign policy. But since all politics is rooted in religious presuppositions, all policies are shaped by some form of religious belief. It hardly seems wise for Christians to adopt the preferences of secularism rather than give credence to the commands of Christ. Foreign policy is merely an extension of the same principles that should drive our domestic policy—a God-impelled love of neighbor.

Sen. Rubio is right that whenever possible we should promote Christian values such as justice, mercy, and religious tolerance. But one of the values that should take precedence is protection of the innocent, particularly when they are members of the institution that commands our primary political allegiance—the body of Christ.

When it comes to actions that affect our brothers and sisters across the globe, a guiding concern should be primum non nocere, "first, do no harm." That can't be our only consideration, of course, but it should be given due weight. We should be particularly wary of allowing some vague "national interest" trump our "familial interest," especially when it leads to the displacement and slaughter of Christians around the globe.

How such policies should be shaped is a difficult question and requires considerable prudence. But one of our duties as American citizens is to lobby for policies we think are moral and just. That duty does not end at our shorelines but extends to the lands of our brothers and sisters who we will not see until we are together in our final home.

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I've spent a lifetime struggling to forgive and keep forgiving my dad. I don't think I felt the weight of it until I spent a week at home as an adult with my son, then 3 years old. As I heard him speak to my son the way he had always talked to me growing up, the weight of a lifetime of harsh words and hurtful disapproval came down on me. That's when I really began to grieve the loss of the nourishing, encouraging dad I wanted. But more than grieving began that week. For years I suffered sleepless nights remembering the conversations and criticisms of the past, rehearsing the confrontation I hoped was somewhere in my future.

One day Dennis Rainey personally handed me a copy of his book The Tribute: What Every Parent Longs to Hear, a book about honoring your parents (now published under the title The Best Gift You Can Ever Give Your Parents). I couldn't even lie and tell him that I looked forward to reading it. I think I actually said to him something like, "I'm not interested in that."

Bitter Reality

A while later I found myself in a beautiful hotel room on a business trip. Once again I was awake in the middle of the night remembering, rehearsing, fuming. But then the Holy Spirit interrupted my anguish. We had been studying John 16 that week in Bible study. Jesus speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit—that he comes to counsel, to convict, to guide us into truth. And that's just what the Holy Spirit did that night. He told me the truth and brought me under the grace of conviction, showing me the blight upon my own soul—the sin of unforgiveness, the sin of demanding my own rights to the dad I think I deserve. He counseled me to begin walking out my repentance by living out and expressing honor to my parents. He called me to trust him to supply the feelings to go along with my choice to live out a forgiveness I didn't really feel.

I began to be kind instead of cold, choosing to turn off the recorder in my mind that wanted to replay the old tapes of hurtful conversations and situations over and over again. I pulled out The Tribute, which challenges readers to compose and deliver a written tribute to their parents, telling them what they did right. And I did it. It took me three years, but I did it. And I know it meant a lot—it still means a lot—to my parents.

But here I am, another decade or so down the road, and my dad is still my dad. And sometimes I realize that I am still that same little girl longing for his approval, his interest, his tenderness that just isn't there. And here comes Father's Day. My life does not have to be ruled by Hallmark, and hopefully I honor my parents more than one day of the year. But I know my dad longs to hear from his kids that he did well as a dad, that he is loved and appreciated. Father's Day is when we tell our dads such things. More than that, I know that honoring my parents is what God wants from me; it's what's best for me.

Ugly Truth

But here's the ugly truth: I do not want to honor my parents. So here, as in so many other areas, I find the law continues to drive me to Christ. How I need the righteousness of one who always honored his earthly parents to be credited to my account, which is radically in the red in this department. How I need the power of the one who glorified his heavenly Father to generate in me the desire and decision to honor my father, and the perseverance to carry it out over the long haul of life and future offenses. How I need the Spirit who generates the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control to tend this garden in my heart and bring about this growth in my life—in my actions and reactions. How I need my heavenly Father to remind me that he intends to use every disappointment in my life—including my disappointments with my dad—to draw me to depend more fully on him.

I do not want to honor my parents. So I'm asking God for the want-to. I'm once again reckoning myself dead to the sins of disrespect, hard-heartedness, coldness, contempt, self-righteousness, and unforgiveness so that I can be alive to God. I'm taking a step in God's direction by taking a step in my dad's direction.

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (1 John 2:3-6).

I'm taking a step in my dad's direction because I want to walk in the way Christ walked. And I'm trusting that Christ will be there with me, empowering me for every costly, stumbling step. 

A daughter who shall remain anonymous, out of a desire to honor rather than dishonor her dad.

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Christians are not always on top of things. Where in the Bible are we taught to expect unruffled composure and unbroken victory? Sometimes life is so troubling, we feel defeated even in prayer. And if we cannot pray, we are really in trouble. At that very moment when we most need to draw upon God's promises through prayer—what if we fail at that vital point of connection, when it really counts? Will our weakness bungle the purpose of God? Under normal conditions we tell ourselves that, when all else fails, we can fall back on prayer. But what if we do come to the end of ourselves and our own devices only to discover we don't even know what to pray, we don't understand how to connect the Bible with our experience, and God himself seems far away? What then? What encouragement can we look to beyond our own radical weakness?

When we're reduced to helplessness, the Holy Spirit will help us. Have you ever thought of the Holy Spirit as a gracious person who steps in with the offer: "May I help? May I bear that burden with you? You're in anguish over your children. You feel forsaken by God. You don't know how to negotiate that important decision. You're lonely. You're tempted. You're sinful. You need to pray. May I help?" The Holy Spirit does not reproach us. In fact, he "gives generously to all without making them feel foolish or guilty" (James 1:5, Phillips).

But how does the Holy Spirit help us? Now we enter into deep mystery. The Spirit helps us, Paul explains, by interceding for us. When we are too defeated and confused to pray, when the familiar phrases just don't seem adequate anymore, when all we can do is groan, the Spirit makes his own appeal on our behalf.

Prayer is more profound than folding our hands and closing our eyes and mouthing well-worn phrases. James Montgomery's (1771-1854) hymn has long recognized this:

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,

unuttered or expressed,

the motion of a hidden fire

that trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burden of a sigh,

the falling of a tear,

the upward glancing of an eye

when none but God is near.

This, too, is prayer, both urgent and profound. And it's in mo­ments like these, when the heart moves even beyond words, that the "the Spirit himself"—the Spirit personally and directly, in imme­diacy and nearness—helps by interceding for us "with groanings too deep for words."

Ole Kristian Hallesby (1879-1961) was a Norwegian theologian who stood for biblical truth in an age of doctrinal erosion. He also resisted the Nazi occupation of Norway during World War II and suffered for it in a concentration camp. He understood the depth of prayer. In his book on the subject he wrote this:

I have witnessed the death-struggle of some of my Christian friends. Pain has coursed through their bodies and souls. But this was not their worst experience. I have seen them gaze at me anxiously and ask, "What will become of me when I am no longer able to think a sustained thought, nor pray to God?"

If they only realized what they were doing, the people who postpone conversion until they become ill! My friend, in the death-struggle your physical and mental energies will all be taxed to their utmost by your suffering and pain. Remember that and repent now, the acceptable time.

When I stand at the bedside of friends who are struggling with death, it is blessed to be able to say to them, "Do not worry about the prayers that you cannot pray. You yourself are a prayer to God at this moment. All that is within you cries out to Him. And He hears all the pleas that your suffering soul and body are making to Him with groanings which cannot be uttered. But if you should have an occasional restful moment, thank God that you already have been reconciled to Him, and that you are now resting in the everlasting arms."¹

Editors' note: This excerpt is adapted from Ortlund's new book, Supernatural Living for Natural People: The Life-Giving Message of Romans 8 (Christian Focus, 2013). 

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