Analysis

Arguments must be convincing and, in order to convince, they must be valid—the minimum requirement of persuasion.

Kayley lies on the floor, throwing a tantrum because she only has pink flashing-heel shoes and she wants a blue pair to match her new jeans. John sits on the floor, happily playing with a few blocks of wood. His dad found them lying in the street, brought them home and sanded them smooth. Yesterday he stacked them up to build a castle....

Should we be optimistic or pessimistic about our future? This is a question even specialists are concerned with, and it cannot be answered easily. It is difficult to predict what the future holds.

When I was 20, my spiritual life felt like an exam where I had been given a topic I hadn’t prepared for.

What is my reason for joining or staying in a church? Why do I want to pass on my spiritual heritage to my children? Why do I invite my friends to church? Or what are my reasons for saying no to church invitations?

It is difficult to say whether there is a preferable age for facing the death of a parent, but having it happen during childhood and adolescence can have devastating effects on physical and mental wellbeing, which can extend even into adulthood.

Peering through the dust settling from the chaos of last year, we are trying to see into the unknown of the coming year, hoping for the best. Irrespective of what our hopes for 2020 were, our expectations for 2021 seem to centre on things going back to normal.

I have two reasons for writing this article on identity crisis. First, I am the father of four children, three of whom are very different teenagers (14, 17 and 19 years old) and I think I have a vague idea of what it means to deal with teens. Second, in the studies I’ve recently taken up, I was surprised to discover that most...

One of the biggest challenges facing both parents and teachers is to help children stay motivated so that they can keep focus, persevere when they are struggling, move forward, and finish what they have begun.

To have willpower does not mean saying you want to do something, it means to actually be doing it—André Maurois

Sometimes, I wonder what I would be like if I were more like Jesus. Above all, I wonder how He would act in my situation. I have to admit that these questions sometimes leave me feeling lost.

Beginning with Cain and Abel, history has known famous and less famous stories woven around the devastating experience of envy.

Daniel Bruneau’s parents, who hail from Mauritius and the Seychelles respectively, met in England. When Daniel came to Atlanta to teach at the university, he wanted to deepen his relationship with God.

Andrew McChesney knew what he wanted—to be a famous journalist. He thought Moscow would be a good place to learn his craft and make a name for himself, which he did. But his years in Russia shaped his life in a much deeper way—it was there that he discovered God and found new meaning in life.

The final struggle of life before it slips away, through an intermezzo of agony, from the one whose body it energised, seems to carry no hint of a miracle. It's an image you'd want to turn away from until the grotesque faces of the crushing moment fade. It's a passing—rarely gentle—into the rest that follows life's final flutter of wings.