CIAM Radio

Listen to today's Laugh Again with Phil Callaway, "Stormie Omartian - Beyond Hope." Enjoy!

Why did God seemingly focus only on Israel in the Old Testament while ignoring the nations? Dr. John Neufeld explores Isaiah 42:14-26, revealing that God always had a global plan—He was simply waiting for the right moment to cry out like a woman in labor. When the servant Israel failed their mission to bring light to the nations, God sent another Servant who would succeed. This passage challenges us: will we faithfully participate in God's unstoppable plan to fill the earth with His glory, or will we repeat Israel's blindness?

God and the World's Idols: What are you really worshipping? In this series through Isaiah 40–44, Dr. John Neufeld explores one of Scripture's most powerful confrontations between the living God and the idols humanity creates. Writing to a nation facing exile and questioning whether their God has abandoned them, Isaiah paints a stunning portrait of who God truly is — His wisdom that needs no counsel, His power that never grows weary, His sovereignty over history itself.

Saying no to divorce, plus why Christian movies feel so cringe, and dating someone with a narcissistic family member.  

Featured musical artist:  John Waller

Roundtable: Safeguards Against Divorce

Building a healthy marriage is especially tough when your family tree is littered with divorce and dysfunction. But with God’s grace, good preparation, and a huge dose of humility, you can break sinful cycles and prioritize relational health in your family. Each of our guests has overcome the influence of generationally broken relationships and bad decisions, and they are now married and determined to do things differently. Their stories, commitments and strategies to accomplish this will inspire you.   

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Link To: The 5 Love Languages

Culture: Cringey Christian Films

Christian films historically have a reputation for low budgets, bad acting, and heavy-handed preachiness. Even though their motives and messages are good, bad art and low production standards mar their potential. Two of our Plugged In team members join the conversation this week to talk about why Christian movies tend to feel so cringe, but also how to redeem the genre and find the cinematic diamonds in the rough.  

Becoming a Screen-Savvy Family: How to Navigate a Media-Saturated World–and Why We Should                 

Link to Plugged In Website 

Inbox: Family Narcissists and Dating

You love the person you’re dating, but one of their family members is a narcissist. How do you work through that? Counselor Seyah Sparr weighs in. 

Link to Counseling Services 

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It’s girls’ day on FamilyLife Today, and Ann Wilson pulls back the curtain on the word so many women side-eye: submission. With wit, warmth, and surprising joy, pastors' wives Ari Todd and Brittany Gray reframe this God-first posture that fuels unity, honors strength, and brings real flourishing. If the thought of “submissive wives” makes you flinch or groan, this conversation might be the freedom you didn’t know you needed.

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Healthy habits will improve your marriage! Dr. Randy Schroeder recommends husbands and wives learn to forgive each other, be solution-focused in conflict, and infuse laughter into their relationship. He also warns about having secrets, interrupting each other, and using sarcasm. Couples can learn better ways to interact with and communicate!

Change isn’t easy, but it can be an opportunity for personal growth. As you learn to bend and adapt to change you become flexible. And when you’re flexible, you’re open to what God has in store for you.

What do we say to the woman who has already gotten an abortion? How can we help the person who advised a friend or relative to abort her child? This is the flip side of a crucial issue and cannot be ignored.

From the Series: The Sanctity of Life...The Inescapable Issue

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One of the temporary after effects of my wife's bout with hepatitis years ago was some memory loss. Now, I forget a lot of things and I don't have an excuse. Well, for a while, my wife had a great excuse for forgetting some things, because that memory loss had some real effects. Like the day she left the pot of water on the stove to boil. She promptly moved away from the kitchen and forgot all about it. She told me she even forgot about it after she smelled something burning. So, she went all through the house; checked the dryer, checked the furnace. "What in the world is that burning smell?" Well, when she finally decided to check the kitchen, you can probably guess what the scene was. Oh yeah, there was no more water left in that pot; it had boiled dry. The burner was red hot; the pan had become part of the burner. It was bonded to the burner. It literally had to be broken off. Yeah, she needed some heat to do her job, but not that much heat!

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Not More Than You Can Bear."

By the way, lest you be too concerned, that was a temporary memory loss, and she got it all back. Let's look at our word for today from the Word of God. Because it's a promise for people who are in the oven, you might say, who are suffering in some intense heat right now. 1 Corinthians 10:13. Listen to these familiar words: "No temptation (or testing it could be translated) has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted (or tested) beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted (or tested), He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."

Don't you love the promise of those words, "Not beyond what you can bear"? Those are words with your name on them maybe today because of what you're having to bear today. God promises He will not take you beyond what you can handle.

I've always found potters to be intriguing. When we go to colonial villages I always enjoy watching them. I saw an interview with a potter, and she talked about how they take this formless lump of clay. And with their skilled hands on that wheel, they're able to make it into something beautiful and useful, and then the oven. They cook that piece of pottery that they've molded. They cook it at temperatures of up to 2,200 degrees to make sure that the shaping will last. It actually takes extreme heat to make the beauty and the usefulness permanent.

The interviewer said, "Well, is it possible to get the oven too hot for the pottery?" She said, "Oh, yeah. For example, if you get it up to say 3,000 degrees it will just melt down." But then she said, "The potter always knows the melting point." So does yours. God's bottom line in Romans 8:29 - "He has predestined that you would be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus." He wants you to be like Jesus, so He uses the heat in your life to burn off the junk that might otherwise never come off. And God has been building in you lately a new love, a new patience, new purity, a new hunger for His word, new faith to trust Him, new character. But if it's never tested, it won't last. You have to take that new you into some intense heat for it to become tough and permanent. If the new you can get through this heat, you'll have a powerful new confidence in God's work in you.

Right now, maybe all you know is it's just really hot. Well, you have a guarantee from the Master Potter, "not beyond what you can bear." Oh, He might take you to the edge, but He'll never allow you to go over. God will let the heat make you stronger, but He'll never leave His masterpiece in the oven too long.

Read: Revelation 21:1-5, 9-11, 18-27

“I’d rather go to school than shovel the snow left behind from the blizzard,” Miguel grumbled.

“Oh, it’s not so bad.” Dad pitched a large scoop of snow into the yard before he stopped and looked at their surroundings. “I think a heavy blanket of snow like this is pretty.”

Miguel scanned the horizon. The snow twinkled in the sunlight like it was dusted with silver glitter. He squinted against the brightness and harrumphed. “All I see is work.” Miguel flexed his fingers in his cold, stiffened gloves, then he scraped the flat shovel blade across a patch of sidewalk hoping he could push the snow off the cement, rather than lift the heavy precipitation. “Scooping snow is worse than taking out stinky garbage.”

Dad laughed.

Miguel frowned. He wasn’t joking. He hefted another scoop and flung it into the yard. “I’d rather eat Brussel sprouts than shovel snow.” Now Dad would know he was serious because Miguel disliked Brussel sprouts. A lot.

Again, Dad laughed.

Miguel stopped. “I’m not joking.” His angry breaths came out in huffs of vapor.

Dad stuck his shovel in a deep snow drift. “Shoveling, like any chore, is something that must be done, so you might as well do it with joy. Besides, seeing the ground covered in sparkling snow makes me think God is giving us a little glimpse of heaven’s glory, a reminder to believers of what we will see someday.”

“Heaven is a beautiful place. The Bible says that when Jesus comes back to make everything new, the heavenly city where we’ll live will sparkle and shine with gold, crystal, and many jewels. Of course, it’s not the sun glistening on the ice crystals that makes heaven sparkle with beauty. It’s the glory of the Lord.”

“Oh.” Miguel had learned about heaven’s splendor and God’s promise to believers at church, but he never thought about seeing that beauty on earth. He shielded his eyes with a hand and looked at the yards blanketed in snow. This time he appreciated the beauty around him. He smiled at the thought that it was just a small glimpse of the magnificence he’d see one day when he was in heaven surrounded by God’s light.

–Rose Ross Zediker

How about you? Do you see little glimpses of God’s light on earth that point to His promise of heaven? A rainbow after a thunderstorm. A sun dog in the bitter cold of winter. The shimmer of morning dew on green grass. A mirrored reflection off a crystal-clear lake. These are small reminders of the beauty that awaits those who trust in Jesus when He creates a bright, beautiful home for us with Him in heaven.

Today's Key Verse: The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. Revelation 21:23 (NIV)

Today's Key Thought: God is heaven’s light