She once heard voices telling her she was about to hurt someone. Now she hosts one of Hope Channel's most-watched shows. This episode asks the question most Christian parents are afraid to say out loud: is it ever loving to let someone hit bottom?

Years ago Shawn Boonstra signed the guest book at a church that wasn't his own, just to see what would happen. They called him back in 32 hours. Meanwhile, interest cards from his own television broadcast were sitting in a filing cabinet for three months.

Shawn joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church six weeks before Waco burned. Justin comes from a country whose own society files Adventism as an official cult. So they took the actual checklist — the warning signs people use to identify a cult — and ran the church through it, line by line, including the ones it doesn't pass.

Imagine sitting in biology class, staring at a diagram presented as settled fact—when a quiet voice whispers, what if they're right? For one pastor's kid, keeping faith in a public school meant missing Homecoming, sitting out the band parade where scouts handed out scholarships, and wondering whether her beliefs were costing more than they gave. This is an honest account of doubt, sacrifice, and the surprising things her parents said that changed everything. What does it really take to stay "fully, unapologetically blue" in a world pulling you toward purple? Listen to her story.

Of all the stories Jesus told, this one is our favorite.

An arrogant, entitled son demands his inheritance from his father, but wastes it in riotous living. When the money and the morals are lost, he remembers his father’s house, and begins the awkward journey home, offering to be a servant, not a son. But the father runs to meet him, sweeps him up in his arms, and completely reinstates him in the family. Scroll the closing credits on “The Prodigal Son.”

But that’s not the end of the story Jesus told, even though we prefer to stop there. An older brother, the “good son” who stayed home and worked the farm, refuses to accept his brother’s re-inclusion. He will not dance; he will not join the party. Unforgiveness runs deep in him—deeper than any furrow he has plowed.

Jesus’ story is unfinished. One brother isn’t reconciled.

If you are eager for the Father’s welcome but will not welcome other prodigals, you may not find your home within the Father’s house. The Father has one rule for all: “You must be both forgiven and forgiving.”

The grace shown you is meant for others too.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

Does God need a perfect generation of humans to prove His critics wrong? In 1947 one Adventist theologian argued exactly that—launching a debate that still divides believers today. If God's character is on trial before the universe, who actually clears His name? Us, through flawless obedience? Or someone else entirely? This piece digs into what Ellen White actually wrote, and the answer is bigger and more surprising than either side of the argument tends to admit. It reaches from the cross to the final destruction of evil. Who really vindicates the character of God? Listen and find out.

Two red cars came screaming around a mountain curve at over 70 miles per hour—headed straight at Michelle and her friends, with a rock wall on one side and a hundred-foot drop to the river on the other. There was nowhere to go. "This is it," she told her friend. "We're gonna die." Then came a deafening snap, the smell of sulfur, and silence. When Michelle opened her eyes, the car that should have killed her was somehow on the other side of the road. And nine teenagers in two black trucks had seen exactly what happened. Listen.

Yes, we remember all too well.

The teacher whose volcanic mood made one day bright and hopeful while the next we hardly dared to draw a breath . . . The parent who turned what should have been our safest space into a house of vigilance, where anger flashed erratically . . . The colleague whom we tiptoed past, just praying we didn’t trouble him . . .

From all such stories, we deduced that God was just as changeable—a deity who one day welcomed us to Him and next day chased us far away.

The truth—at last—is healing to our bodies and safety for our souls: “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts’” (Isa 55:8-9).

The Father doesn’t ask us in only to suddenly reject us, nor does He act toward us with cold, unfeeling judgment: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them” (2 Cor 5:19).

Grace is God’s vigilance to bring us safely to Himself where we will thrive and find His deep, persistent joy.

So stay in grace. -Bill Knott

If grace was as fragile as many believe it to be, we could never be truly confident that our lives have been fully redeemed and deeply restored.

We would always be unsure of what God wants us to be most certain of: “For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far He removes our transgressions from us” (Psa 103:11-12).  

Our fears and doubts about the durability of grace don’t begin to change the ways God loves us. Our anxieties that the great Lover of our souls will be as fickle and unsteady as we are merely deprive us more time in His grip, more joy in His presence, and more certainty in His promise: “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him” (John 3:17).

Trust the arms that grip us at our worst, and the Love that will not let us go.

And stay in grace. -Bill Knott

Imagine publishing a book at twelve years old—one that started with nothing more than nature walks and a mother's simple question: "Where do you see God in that tree?" In this piece, a teenager shares how she's read the entire Bible four times, why one word in the story of Daniel changed how she makes decisions, and what she's learned about choosing right when convenient is so much easier. She's honest that she still stumbles. But she's found something steadier than her own intuition. What does it take to "purpose in your heart" before the hard choice ever comes? Listen.