Family Matters

What can my husband and I do to help our teenage son become the man God wants him to be? In some ways he seems to be afraid of adulthood, manhood, and everything that goes along with it, and we'd like to get him over that hump. At the same time, we don't want him to become an arrogant "macho man." How do we strike the right balance?

This is a 60-second daily feature looking at most critical issues facing the family today. In these features, focus on the Family offers practical advice on variety of subjects of interest for the whole family. Subjects include: marital, medical, emotional, parental and many more.

If God is fair, just, and loving, why is there so much suffering in the world? I want to believe in His goodness, but the injustices of life have convinced me that, if He does exist, He must not care very much about what goes on in this world. Just recently, my neighbor, a good and generous man, lost his little girl in a collision with a drunk driver. As fate – or God – would have it, the drunk driver survived the accident unscathed. As I'm sure you realize, this is not an isolated incident. How can things like this happen so often if God is the loving Creator Christians make Him out to be?

What does the Bible have to say about moderate alcohol consumption? Gradually I'm becoming aware of an increasing openness to social drinking in our circle of Christian friends. As a matter of fact, this seems to be the new norm. I'm not sure that I feel comfortable with this, and I'm wondering what your views are on this issue

This is a 60-second daily feature looking at most critical issues facing the family today. In these features, focus on the Family offers practical advice on variety of subjects of interest for the whole family. Subjects include: marital, medical, emotional, parental and many more.

This is a 60-second daily feature looking at most critical issues facing the family today. In these features, focus on the Family offers practical advice on variety of subjects of interest for the whole family. Subjects include: marital, medical, emotional, parental and many more.

Should we keep tithing to our church while trying to pay off debts? My husband and I are on a tight budget and trying our best to pay off a large backlog of debt that has been building over the past several years. Would it be better to put our giving on hold until we've satisfied all our creditors?

This is a 60-second daily feature looking at most critical issues facing the family today. In these features, focus on the Family offers practical advice on variety of subjects of interest for the whole family. Subjects include: marital, medical, emotional, parental and many more.

If sex is an indispensable part of a healthy marital relationship – what does this imply for a marriage in which the act of sex has become traumatic for the wife? That's my situation. There are a couple of reasons for this, and neither of them has anything to do with past abuse or a history of negative sexual experiences. It's partly a question of pain and discomfort due to physical issues, but the bigger problem is my emotional revulsion to the perverse sexual practices in which my husband wants me to engage. He's been addicted to pornography for at least a decade and half (only recently discovered), and he's constantly asking me to help him act out the disgusting images he sees in magazines and on the Internet. As a dutiful wife, I've tried to maintain a "healthy Christian marriage" by accommodating his requests. Unfortunately, it's only made things worse. This leads me to wonder: can sex actually become a barrier to a healthy marriage when it can't be expressed in the way God intended?

This is a 60-second daily feature looking at most critical issues facing the family today. In these features, focus on the Family offers practical advice on variety of subjects of interest for the whole family. Subjects include: marital, medical, emotional, parental and many more.