Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jim Daly is the president and CEO of Focus on the Family. Daly has received the 2008 World Children's Center Humanitarian Award and the 2009 Children's Hunger Fund Children's Champion Award. He has appeared on such television programs as ABC “World News Tonight” and PBS’ “Religion & Ethics”; and been featured in Time, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today and Newsweek, which named him one of the top 10 next-generation evangelical leaders of influence. Daly and his wife have two sons and reside in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Visit: www.focusonthefamily.com.

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ReFocus

ZONDERVAN

Contents

1 Time for a Change............................................112 The Clash of Two Worlds......................................253 Don't Panic..................................................474 Fan or Follower?.............................................615 Taking the Long View of Life.................................736 Always Be Ready!.............................................877 No One Is Beyond the Reach of God............................998 Don't Be a Miserable Christian...............................1099 Scripture as the Rock........................................12510 The Kindness of God Leads to Repentance.....................14711 We're Not Entitled to Run the World.........................16512 Rest in the Peace of God....................................177Acknowledgments................................................197Notes..........................................................199About Jim Daly and Paul Batura.................................206

Chapter One

Since this new way gives us such confidence, we can be very bold ...

Therefore, since God in his mercy has given us this new way, we never give up. We reject all shameful deeds and underhanded methods. We don't try to trick anyone or distort the word of God. We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this.

2 CORINTHIANS 3:12; 4:1–2 NLT

My eyes were fixed on the faces of my two sons, their eyes huge with wonder. Trent and Troy were getting their first look at the magnificent Mount Rushmore. I drank in this perfect scene — my boys, ages nine and eleven, struck speechless by the immense white sculpted mountains honoring four of our nation's great presidents. I had been anticipating this moment mile after mile, and now my heart swelled with gratitude — gratitude for these two young men God had entrusted to Jean and me, gratitude for this great country, and gratitude to the God who had given me this moment.

My wife, Jean, and I had spent months planning this vacation and had driven our fifth wheel from Colorado Springs to the famed but desolate outpost in the scenic Black Hills of South Dakota. Even though I absolutely love my role at Focus, it was great after a particularly tough spring to finally get away from the rigorous office routine and reconnect with the boys at the start of their summer vacation. I had my smartphone in my pocket; I had made a conscious decision to stay away from work and had asked my assistant to refrain from calling me except for dire emergencies.

I moved from studying the faces of my sons to studying the faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln, contrasted against the crystal-clear blue sky that called my eyes heavenward.

And then my phone rang.

I looked down and recognized the number. It was the office calling, but given the remoteness of our location, the signal was weak. I attempted to answer it, only to quickly lose the call. After repeated attempts at reconnecting, I found a tiny spot where the phone held a signal. I had to almost stand on one leg and lean to one side in order to hear the caller. The news was disheartening.

Several months earlier, our Focus on the Family team had planned an event with TOMS. This corporation was founded on a novel concept: for every pair of TOMS shoes purchased, the company donates a pair to a needy child. When I first heard about what they were doing, I was intrigued. "The goal isn't how much money you make but how much you help people," founder and CEO Blake Mycoskie told the New York Times in 2009. Impressive, I thought. I'd love to learn more.

Blake's concept sparked an idea at Focus. We arranged to host a special event to bring attention to the work that Blake and his colleagues were doing. I believed that his story would inspire other Christians to act on their faith and help others in need. We wanted to highlight the great work of TOMS and tell our friends how they could join the mission of putting shoes on the feet of impoverished kids. We envisioned the possibility of giving away as many as a half million shoes through the program.

The night finally arrived, and I interviewed Blake in front of an audience of more than fifteen hundred guests on a summer evening in Southern California. As we left California, we were humbled by the success of the event and excited to see the response to the broadcast, which had yet to air across our radio network.

But now, standing in South Dakota, I was told that TOMS was no longer comfortable with their association with Focus. Blake had just posted a blog about Focus on the Family, and his words, read to me by our vice president of communications, Gary Schneeberger, saddened me. Earlier in the week, Blake and his company had been chastised and petitioned by homosexual advocates, demanding that he apologize for speaking at our event.

What did Blake say in his blog that incited such a strong reaction one week after the interview? He suggested that if he had known what we stood for as a ministry, he wouldn't have agreed to speak at our event. The topic was grist for the blogo-sphere, especially at sites promoting homosexual rights. I was most saddened by the level of vitriol heaped not only on Focus on the Family but also on Blake and his colleagues at TOMS by those with whom we have ideological disagreements.

A few days later, Blake and I talked on the phone. I greatly respect and appreciate him and understand the pressure exerted by people in his own organization to distance himself and TOMS from Focus. I tried my best to listen more than talk and didn't try to strong-arm him. Because we had already taped the program and had it in our possession, we had the ability to ignore Blake's wishes and air the program. In fact, given the brewing controversy, it would have generated significant publicity and ratings for Focus. But after talking with Blake, I agreed not to air the radio program. It grieved me to think of the great opportunity we had to help kids — but because of the criticism of a vocal minority, we wouldn't be able to do so. I'd hoped that our partnership with TOMS would be a positive experience of working with those in the business sector, yet our past efforts to be a voice of truth within our culture had alienated so many people that this opportunity to put shoes on the feet of children was squelched.

What happened?

How did we arrive at such a point that an organization like Focus on the Family is deemed unfit by some in our culture to help children in need simply because we hold to what we believe are biblical mandates about marriage and family?

Something is wrong.

But we already knew that.

We're living in tough and confusing times. We see the brokenness of the world, the inevitability of disappointment, the relentless cycles of heartache.

We see the ugliness inside our culture — the absurdity of seemingly really smart people doing really unwise things — and we find it to be distasteful and downright destructive. We see conflict and controversy growing on a daily basis, pride and power plays, and the sad realization that money, sex, prestige, and power seem to drive the passions of people on all sides of the issues.

If you are like me, you want to do something about it — but what?

There must be a better way.

There has to be a better way.

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