Jim Daly is president and CEO of Focus on the Family, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping families thrive. He is also host of its daily broadcast, heard by more than 2.9 million listeners a week across the United States. Under his leadership, the organization has taken on a major role nationally in encouraging and helping facilitate foster-care adoptions, earning recognition from the White House and Congress for its efforts. Daly has a degree in business administration from California State University and a master of business administration from Regis University.
Regardless of one’s political affiliation, it strikes me that for Christians, the coming days, weeks and months could be the modern-day Church’s finest hours. Here’s why: A while back I asked former President George W. Bush to identify the most significant threat to the United States. I thought he would say terrorism. He answered immediately and without equivocation. The deterioration of the family.
Shortly thereafter, I accepted an invitation from the Obama administration to attend a symposium on fatherlessness. My worldview may be different from President Obama’s, but we were both raised without a father, and we both see the rising rate of fatherless homes as a sad cultural epidemic. Two presidents — agreeing that fathers need to be involved and present in their families.
It’s time for us to rededicate ourselves to the mission of the moment: rebuilding the American family and renewing our hope in the God in whose hands we rest “safe and secure from all alarm.” Here is where our work needs to focus now: helping marriages and parents, and introducing people to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It’s time to continue our effort to make sure that every person, however small, is protected under law. It’s time to again remind those who support abortion that life is the better choice! It’s time to recommit ourselves to championing adoption and reforming a broken foster care system. It’s time to be bold and stand stiffly into the wind of popular culture and point to the extraordinary benefits of children being raised in homes with one mom and one dad.
Simply put, it’s time to be the hands and feet of Jesus. The great challenges facing the family still rage red hot. Our hands and our hearts are needed more than ever before in our nation’s history.
This article originally appeared in the NAE Insight.