Heather Michael

Follower of Jesus. Wife. Mommy. RN. Runner. Find me outside. Being brave.

[Matt Smethurst @MattSmethurst]

Man, this is beautiful. A life adorning the gospel.

Listen to what @StevenBartlett—host of one of the world’s most popular podcasts—says to Christian apologist John Lennox.

[Heather Michael @heathermichael_]

Before the face of God…

[Pastor Rich Bitterman @w_bitterman]

God Called Your Wife a Helper...

Helper.

For some it lands like an insult. Secondary. Less important. A word pushed to the edge of the room while the man stands in the center.

Does Genesis say that woman was made to trail behind man carrying his burdens like an unpaid servant?

God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”(Genesis 2:18). The Hebrew word is ezer, helper. Yet this is no small word.

Throughout the Old Testament, it is often used for God Himself, the One who comes to the rescue and the One who gives strength where strength is running out.

That means the word carries weight.

Then Genesis adds another word. Eve would be a helper fit for him, corresponding to him, answering to him, standing face to face with him. She was not made from some lower grade of dust.

When Adam looked at her, he did not look down a ladder. He looked across and then spoke like a man who had just found the missing piece of his own life: “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23).

He recognized his own humanity standing before him.

That scene still carries the scent of Eden…if you slow down long enough to feel it. The garden is alive with green and gold. Trees stand heavy with fruit. Rivers move through the land with the steady voice of water over stone. Adam has named the animals and exercised dominion. He has breathed the clean air of a world untouched by sin.

Yet beneath all that goodness, one thing remains unfinished. The man is alone. Surrounded, yet alone. Busy, yet alone. Blessed, yet alone.

God names that aloneness as the first thing in creation that is not good. That truth should land hard on every husband.

Woman came as God’s answer to a lack in the life of man. Adam could tend the garden, name the animals and walk beneath the smile of his Creator, yet he could not fulfill the whole calling of human life by himself. No beast of the field could stand with him. No bird in the air could share his soul. None could join him in covenant fellowship, shoulder to shoulder beneath God’s command.

So God made the woman.

He did not take her from Adam’s head, as though she were fashioned to rule him. He did not take her from his foot, as though she were fit for his contempt. He took her from his side. Near the heart. Under the arm. The place of closeness and of fellowship. The place where love gives and guards.

That is where marriage begins.

A wife is not a domestic employee in the house of his ambitions. She is not an accessory to male greatness. Rather, she is the strong and fitting counterpart God made, the one who answers his aloneness, strengthens his weakness and joins him in the work of life under heaven.

Her help is full of dignity because it comes from God’s own design. His headship is full of responsibility because it comes from God’s own order. When either of those truths is twisted, a home begins to crack. You can see the damage everywhere now.

The world tells women that helper is a small word, so they begin to hear dishonor where God placed glory. Men often think that headship is control, so some become soft and passive while others become hard and selfish.

Then marriage turns into a contest. The husband keeps score. The wife guards her ground. Both speak of equality while living like rivals. Resentments settle into the corners of a house and stay there.

Genesis gives us something cleaner and stronger.

A husband carries weight before God. He leads with tenderness, repentance and holy seriousness. A wife brings strength to that life. She steadies, sharpens, helps and stands with him.

Both are image bearers. Both have equal worth before God and both answer to the same Lord. Yet they are not interchangeable. Eden had order before sin ever entered the world. The curse did not invent male and female. The fall did not create marriage. God built those things into the grain of creation itself.

That is why marriage cannot live on romance alone.

When the candlelight fades, real marriage is forged in shared burdens, daily kindness, forgiveness, prayer, work, sickness, money pressure, childraising, disappointments, long talks in the dark and a thousand quiet decisions to love when feelings run low.

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). One flesh means shared life. Which is shared grief, shared labor, and shared joy.

A man ought to be able to say, my wife strengthens me where I would have sagged. A woman ought to be able to say, my husband bears responsibility with courage and care. That is not weakness on either side. That is glory in its proper place.

And all of it was meant to happen before the face of God.

The first marriage was never a closed circle. Adam and Eve did not merely have each other. They had fellowship with the Lord. That is why every healthy marriage still rises or falls on this point.

A husband and wife will only come truly near to one another as they come near to God. When pride rules, distance grows. When Christ is honored, something warm returns to the house.

A woman can flourish beside a man who fears God. A man can stand stronger beside a woman who knows the Lord.

So when Genesis calls Eve a helper heaven is not diminishing her. Heaven is crowning her. The word is strong because the calling is strong. She was made to stand beside the man, answer his aloneness and join him in a union deeper than convenience. Bone of his bone. Flesh of his flesh. One life. One home. One covenant beneath God.

That is what marriage looks like when Eden’s light is allowed to fall on it again.

[Eric Hovind @erichovind]

I just finished an interview with Brad from Across Nigeria… and honestly, I’m sitting here stunned.

Today, he buried 14 Christians in a mass grave.
Two were infants.
One was a 4-year-old child.
And this isn’t some recycled internet story or political talking point. Brad was literally there today helping bury them. While on the way to investigate one attack, another Christian community was attacked. He said the violence is happening so fast they can barely keep up anymore.
What shocked me even more is this:
Brad shared that 72% of all Christians killed worldwide last year were killed in this region of Nigeria.
72%.
And hardly anybody is talking about it.
The mainstream media should be all over this. Instead, most people scrolling social media today have no idea our brothers and sisters in Christ are being slaughtered while churches are being forced underground.
Guys… this matters.
Please watch this interview.
Please pray for these families.
And PLEASE share this everywhere you can.
At this point, WE are the media.
WE are how people find out.
WE are the distribution network.
If enough ordinary people start sharing the truth, eventually the world will have to pay attention.
Watch the full conversation and help us get this story out.

[Heather Michael @heathermichael_]

My friends who voted for Bernie have no understanding of these concepts. They are also the ones who will never take a risk.

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Elon Musk avait dit un truc qui m'avait marqué sur l'allocation de ressources. En substance : passé un certain niveau de richesse, l'argent n'est plus de la consommation, c'est de l'allocation de capital.

Cette phrase change tout.

L'économie, dans le fond, c'est juste un problème d'allocation. Tu as des ressources finies et des usages infinis. Qui décide où va quoi ?

Imagine une cour de récré. 100 enfants, des paquets de cartes Pokémon distribués au hasard. Tu laisses faire. Très vite, un ordre émerge. Les bons joueurs accumulent les cartes rares, les collectionneurs trient, les négociateurs trouvent des deals. Personne n'a planifié. Et pourtant chaque carte finit dans les mains de celui qui en tire le plus de valeur. Le système maximise le bonheur total de la cour. C'est ça, la main invisible.

Maintenant fais entrer la maîtresse. Elle trouve ça injuste. Léo a 50 cartes, Tom en a 3. Elle confisque, redistribue, impose l'égalité. Trois effets immédiats. Les bons joueurs arrêtent de jouer, à quoi bon. Les mauvais n'ont plus de raison de progresser, ils auront leur part. Les échanges s'effondrent. La cour est égale, et morte. Elle a maximisé l'égalité, elle a détruit le bonheur.

Le problème de la maîtresse, c'est qu'elle ne peut pas avoir l'information que la cour avait collectivement. C'est le problème du calcul économique de Mises, formulé en 1920. L'URSS a essayé de le résoudre pendant 70 ans avec le Gosplan. Résultat : pénuries, queues, effondrement. Pas parce que les Soviétiques étaient bêtes, parce que le problème est mathématiquement insoluble en mode centralisé.

Quand Musk a 200 milliards, il ne les consomme pas, il les alloue. SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, xAI. Chaque dollar est un pari sur le futur. Et lui a un track record. PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX. Il a démontré qu'il sait identifier des problèmes immenses et y allouer des ressources avec un rendement spectaculaire.

L'État aussi a un track record. Hôpitaux qui s'effondrent, éducation qui décline, dette qui explose, services publics qui se dégradent malgré des budgets en hausse constante. Le marché identifie les bons allocateurs, la politique identifie les bons communicants.

Le profit n'est pas une finalité, c'est un signal. Il dit : tu as alloué des ressources rares vers un usage que les gens valorisent suffisamment pour payer. Plus le profit est gros, plus la création de valeur est grande. Quand Starlink est rentable, ça veut dire que des millions de gens dans des zones rurales ont enfin internet. Quand un ministère est en déficit, ça veut dire qu'il consomme plus qu'il ne produit. L'un crée, l'autre détruit, et on appelle ça redistribution.

Dans nos sociétés il y a deux catégories d'acteurs. Les entrepreneurs et les bureaucrates. L'entrepreneur prend un risque personnel pour identifier un problème, mobiliser des ressources, créer une solution. S'il se trompe il perd. S'il a raison, ses clients gagnent, ses employés gagnent, ses fournisseurs gagnent, l'État collecte des impôts. Il est la cellule de base du progrès humain.

Le bureaucrate ne prend aucun risque personnel. Son salaire est garanti. Au mieux il maintient une rente existante. Au pire il la détruit par excès de réglementation, mauvaise allocation forcée, incitations perverses qui découragent ceux qui produisent. Mais dans aucun cas il ne crée.

Regarde les 50 dernières années. iPhone, internet civil, SpaceX, Tesla, Google, Amazon, Stripe, mRNA, ChatGPT. Toutes des inventions privées, portées par des entrepreneurs, financées par du capital risque. Pas un seul ministère n'a inventé quoi que ce soit qui ait changé ta vie au quotidien.

La France est devenue le laboratoire mondial de la dérive bureaucratique. 57% du PIB en dépenses publiques, record absolu. Une administration tentaculaire, une fiscalité qui pénalise la création de richesse. Résultat : décrochage face aux États-Unis, à l'Allemagne, à la Suisse. Fuite des cerveaux. Désindustrialisation. Dette qui explose.

Et le pire c'est que la mauvaise allocation s'auto-renforce. Plus l'État prélève, moins les entrepreneurs créent. Moins ils créent, moins il y a de base fiscale. Plus l'État s'endette et taxe. Boucle de rétroaction négative parfaite. La maîtresse pense qu'elle aide, et chaque année la cour produit moins.

Dans nos sociétés, ce sont les entrepreneurs, toujours, qui font avancer la civilisation. Les bureaucrates au mieux maintiennent une rente, au pire la détruisent. Aucune société n'a jamais progressé en taxant ses créateurs pour subventionner ses gestionnaires.

La question n'est jamais qui a combien. C'est qui alloue le mieux la prochaine unité de ressource pour maximiser le futur de l'humanité. La réponse depuis 200 ans n'a jamais changé. Ce ne sont pas les fonctionnaires.

[Matt Smethurst @MattSmethurst]

There is a great gulf between the Christianity that wrestles with whether to worship at the cost of imprisonment and death, and the Christianity that wrestles with whether the kids should play soccer on Sunday morning.

—@JohnPiper

[The Gospel Coalition @TGC]

Good Friday reminder:

“The man on the middle cross said I could come.”

[Heather Michael @heathermichael_]

🤍

[Matt Smethurst @MattSmethurst]

“What would you say to a young Christian who is nervous about the future?”

I love @TimKellerNYC’s answer. I think about it every Easter.

[Melissa the Hopeful🏠Homemaker @BiblicalBeauty]

In a recent interview with Jim Daly, Ben Sasse answered several challenging questions about how to respond to suffering with both Christian faith and hope:

"I don't want to be aggressive with the intellectualist rationalist side, but God tells us in Scripture everything we need to know for faith and life, but He doesn't tell us everything we want to know or everything that we ultimately will know. And He is God. And to whom else would we go? So, I trust Him because He is who He is, and He has been faithful.  And so, I won't get every answer this side of eternity...

Death is an enemy. Death is wicked. But it's the final enemy. It's our last battle. And after that, there will be no more tears. And so, we will have these answers, and we will know that God used it for His good."

Please keep praying for him and his family. (Full link below)

[Heather Michael @heathermichael_]

🤍

[Josh Howerton @howertonjosh]

// Why appropriate political engagement by the church is not a DISTRACTION from the Great Commission, but a LEAD MEASURE toward it //

Show me a map of the bluest states in America.
Then show me a map of the states with the least churches.

IT'S THE SAME MAP.

UNCOMFORTABLE PRINCIPLE OF OUR ERA: If you want the advance of the church and the accomplishment of the Great Commission to get MUCH harder in a region, here's all you gotta do: Let it go blue.

Helping lead a church planting network that only plants in highly-unchurched secular areas, I can tell you this is for 2 primary reasons...

1) Strangulation by regulation.

Because progressive areas tend toward high-taxation and high-regulation, families tend to have much less disposable income to give to churches and it is MUCH, MUCH harder to get churches built.

In the words of my friend, Washington state pastor @McPherson_Josh1, "They don't make building churches ILLEGAL, they just make it nearly IMPOSSIBLE."

2) Because progressivism reframes many good things as evil and many evil things as good, it installs a plausibiity structure in the populace that makes Christianity emotionally hard to accept.

Once you start believing things like...

- Abortion is moral good and a "civil rights issue"
- Opposing transgender ideology is harmful and causes mass child-suicide
- Any acknowledgement of gender distinctions is the oppressive patriarchy
- Socialism and Socialism-lite = "compassionate caring for the poor"
- LGBTQIA+ acceptance and advocacy is "basic human decency"
- Redefinitions of "justice" toward "equal outcomes for ethnic groups" instead of the Biblical concept of justice being "equal standards for individuals"
- Etc

... Christianity no longer seems just mistaken, but evil.

And when someone is mistaken you can ignore them, but once you believe they are evil, you feel a moral obligation to oppose and stop them...

Which brings back the original point: If you want to make the accomplishment of the Great Commission MUCH, MUCH harder in a city / state / region, here's all you gotta do: Let it go blue.

[Joel Berry @JoelWBerry]

Iran is home to one of the fastest growing Christian populations in the world. They suffer greatly under the Islamic regime. Pray for the freedom of our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ.

[Heather Michael @heathermichael_]

“Civil dialogue, it’s what makes the country great”

“Do you have hate against the LGBT community?” — “How can I hate that for which I have a heart?”

“When we stop talking, that’s when hatred begins.”

[Erika Kirk @MrsErikaKirk]

Psalm 46:1 - God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

[TaraBull @TaraBull]

Inspirational

[G-PA @IndianaGPA]

Spending a lifetime together 🥰🥰🥰💕♥️

[Heather Michael @heathermichael_]

@gaulicsmith The journey church

[Heather Michael @heathermichael_]

We don’t abandon truth & discernment for the sake of unity.

[Unraveled Faith @unraveledfth]

Oh that opens a beautiful conversation… who walked with Adam and Eve in the garden? Who made the first set of clothing? Who wrestled with Jacob?

When we read John 1 it can transform our understanding of the Old Testament!

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
John 1:1-5 ESV

[Sports Spectrum @Sports_Spectrum]

Jesus was glorified at Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans.