A Press Secretary Quits, a Coach Gets 90 Years

Sixty hours a week. Two small kids at home. This is The Gospel Briefing. I'm Charles King. One question drives today's lead: when the work is good and the calling is loud, how does a Christian know when to say enough? Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is explaining why she walked away. In an Instagram question-and-answer this week, Leavitt, who is twenty-nine, said she was in the office more than sixty hours a week, traveling the world, on call around the clock. She left the press secretary role in August after serving since January of last year. She confirmed she joins Fox News as a contributor on November first. She called President Trump "the best boss," said he had been kind to her, and said she wanted to be home with her two young children. That was the reason. Not scandal. Not a talking point. A mother saying the math no longer worked. You can hold your own view of the administration she served. Set it aside a moment. The quieter story here is one almost every working parent will recognize. Scripture is not sentimental about this. Paul writes in First Timothy five, verse eight, that anyone who does not provide for his household has denied the faith. Provision is not only a paycheck. It is presence. It is the showing up no title replaces. If you want to sit with that today, keep First Timothy five open in Bible Copilot and follow along. Our second story is harder. In Mississippi yesterday, a federal judge handed down the maximum sentence of ninety years in prison to Sean Gardner, a thirty-nine-year-old former youth gymnastics coach. He pleaded guilty to three counts of child pornography production after hiding a camera in a gym bathroom in Purvis, Mississippi, and recording at least ten minor girls between December of twenty-seventeen and April of twenty-eighteen. The FBI arrested him last summer. Investigators found the videos while looking into separate abuse claims from Iowa. Some victims say USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Center for SafeSport were warned about him as early as twenty-seventeen and did not act for years. Luke seventeen, verse two, is one of the most sobering sentences Jesus ever spoke. He said it would be better for someone to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. Earthly courts did their work this week. Pray for the survivors. Pray that institutions learn to fear God more than they fear a lawsuit. Our third story. Pope Leo the Fourteenth is recovering from lung cancer surgery at the Vatican. A South America trip sits on the calendar twenty-four days after the operation. Doctors and further tests will decide whether he can go. However you view the papacy, pray for a man recovering from cancer. James five tells us to pray for the sick. That instruction has no asterisk. Pray for wisdom today before you repeat what you have heard. And one practice: call the parent, the pastor, the public servant you know who is running on empty. Ask how they really are. This episode is presented by Bible Copilot. Open Bible Copilot and start with today's Verse of the Day from Psalm ninety. It walks you through a guided study of what the passage says, what it means, what it reveals about God, and how to apply it this week. Three questions a day are free. Start at mybiblecopilot dot com slash gospel. That's mybiblecopilot dot com slash gospel, or search Bible Copilot in the App Store. Our verse of the day is Psalm ninety, verse twelve. "So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." A press secretary counted her days and went home. A judge counted a predator's days and locked the door. A pope is counting his days with a surgeon. You get to count yours too. Thanks for listening to The Gospel Briefing. Go number this day well. I'll see you tomorrow.