Church, Relationships, Wisdom
John Beeson
How to Make Yourself At Home At (Almost) Any ...

“This year my resolution is to get back to God.” My friend shared his resolution with me and my heart leapt. He asked me how he could start that journey. I encouraged him to read a gospel and to connect with a church. He’s only been to church a few times in his life and I could feel the anxiety creep up on him as he considered the possibility.

When was the last time you were at church? Maybe it’s been years. Just thinking of your last time at church might make you recoil a bit. Perhaps it was the music, the awkward coffee hour, the rambling sermon.

How to Make Yourself At Home At (Almost) Any Church
Culture, Christian Living, Religion, Wisdom, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
The Light of Your Own Fire

Outside of Christian music, the song that I’ve most often heard played at funerals is a 55-year-old song from the Great American Songbook. In 1969 Frank Sinatra released “I Did it My Way.” At 53 years old, he reflected back on his life and determined that while he had some regrets, the most important thing is that he did it his own way.

The Light of Your Own Fire
Recommendations, Christian Living, Forgiveness, Nature
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Why am I so spiritually dry? Glenna Marshall reflects, “I couldn’t think of any particular trigger. No big reason stood out to me that would explain why everything felt stale and stagnant inside.”

  2. When offenses come: Scott Hubbard encourages us to reframe when we’ve been sinned against, “Offenses are gifts wrapped with dark ribbons. So don’t let the packaging deceive you. Every snub and jab and wound invites you into deeper fellowship and joy with your forgiving Lord.”

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Church, Family
John Beeson
I've Missed You

Life comes at us fast. How do our calendars get so full? Birthdays and conferences and vacations stack up. We miss church one week, and that turns into two, which turns to a month. Ever so sneakily, new rhythms have crept in and getting to church feels like a challenge.

“How much is it really hurting my spiritual life, anyway?” you wonder. “I still read the Bible. I listen to sermons online sometimes.”

I’m so glad that you are pursuing God on your own. But your spiritual life isn’t intended to be lived out alone. It’s not even designed to be lived out with just you and your family.

I've Missed You
Identity, Spiritual Growth, Worship
John Beeson
God's Names and Our Identities

There was a season of worship music from my childhood where a flood of songs were released reflecting on the names of God. El Shaddai, Jehovah Jireh My Provider, and Emmanuel all spring to mind. Interest in the names of God appears to making a comeback in worship as demonstrated by the popularity of Jireh, Yahweh, and Yahweh Elyon.

The names of God have always been dear to his people. The first person in scripture to give God a name is Hagar, who calls God El Roi, “The God who sees”

God's Names and Our Identities

Trevin Wax

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. A theology of leisure: Reagan Rose with an important piece. She says, “Many Christians have unthinkingly adopted a view of leisure that sees rest time as synonymous with me time. But this is a historical anomaly.”

  2. The church’s unsung hero: the persevering Sunday School teacher: Can we get an amen to Trevin Wax’s post? God bless our amazing faithful teachers! “Committed Sunday school teachers are a big part of what makes discipleship effective. Yet how often do we let weeks and years go by without lifting up their example or celebrating their faithfulness?”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. When borders change, stay settled: Trevin Wax offers, “The descendants of Spanish settlers remain in New Mexico. Over the centuries, the borders have shifted over their heads, putting them under the rule of New Spain, or France, or Mexico, or Texas, or the United States. While the boundary markers changed, the settlers continued with their unique cultural attributes, their Spanish dialect, their old buildings and landmarks, their traditions and artifacts. There’s a lesson here for the church in unsettled times. Boundaries may shift, but we remain settled because of enduring truths.”

  2. Who was ‘i’ without my iPhone? Luke Simon shares, “As I aged, I never grew more comfortable with myself. Instead, I spent more and more hours each day as luk3simon. It was easier that way.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The Lord sees: Trevin Wax shares, “’El Roi’ is a name given to God in the Old Testament, a source of comfort and peace in times of distress. It first falls from the trembling lips of Hagar, the enslaved woman driven into the wilderness after being caught up in the sinful designs of her master and his wife. There she kneels, despondent and despairing, ready for life to come to an end. And there in that desert of sorrow, the Lord sees.”

  2. How to be an elder on Sunday morning: Great advice for elders… and for all of us. David Gunderson says, “Elders provide fatherly leadership, care, and protection for God’s family. Thinking like a father on Sundays should warm your heart, clarify your focus, and make you more alert as you care for God’s family.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Why the world’s greatest athletes don’t get paid like it: Most Olympic athletes truly do it for the love of the game. Mark Dent reports, “26.5% of the surveyed athletes had a total income of less than $15k per year, and another study from the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee found 59% of Olympic hopefuls make less than $25k during Olympic years.”

  2. How to counter the forces that malform your soul: John Mark Comer explains how spiritual formation happens in this brief video.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Does Bach’s music prove the existence of God? Trevin Wax thinks so, “The inconsolable longing we feel when we encounter true beauty, when the soaring symphony swells toward a melody’s resolution, is the window to another world, whispering to us, singing to us, ‘There is something more.’”

  2. Lessons from a Job season: Travis reflects, “Whether you have suffered more, suffered less, or your suffering is still to come, none of us lives a life free from the difficulties that are part of a world marred by sin and curse. Sometimes the troubles seem unexplainable, uncontrollable, and unending. Like Job, we may relentlessly call out to God, and, like Job, we may not receive quick relief or quick answers.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. I will not forget you: Kathryn Butler offers hope in the midst of dementia, “Walking alongside Violet feels like watching death in slow motion. As the quirks and values and personality traits I’ve come to love about her fade away one by one, it’s as if I’m watching Violet herself dwindle and vanish.”

  2. Critical dynamics of criticism: Nick Batzig begins, “It is probably fair to draw the conclusion that there is a universal dislike for personal criticism and correction. Nothing reveals the pride that resides in each one of our hearts so much as being on the receiving end of criticism.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The world cannot be gender blind: Trevin Wax, “One of the strange ironies of our times: a significant segment of the left pushes back forcefully against the idea of “color blindness” regarding race but demands what amounts to “gender blindness” regarding sex…”

  2. Violent pornography’s assault on the marriage bed: A very sobering read from Joe Carter, “Because these images are being fed to him when his personality is still being formed and his sexuality is developing, he begins to confuse his desires with those he sees in porn…

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. A sickness in pursuing health: Trevin Wax considers some of the excesses of the movement toward long and healthy living. “If this life is all there is, then the pressure to optimize your body and extend your life as long as possible makes sense. But if there’s more to life than this existence and more to “making the most” of life than physical prowess, then the pursuit of longevity and health can sabotage itself.”

  2. When God takes his time: I love everything Glenna Marshall writes. This is so filled with wisdom, “The problem is this: we rarely assume that God is purposeful and kind in his long game.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Who would I be if I was happy? Trevin Wax warns us, “Many young people are increasingly drawn to establishing and expressing their identities through their psychological maladies.”

  2. Wherever he leads, I’ll go: Glenna Marshall shares a story I bet you might identify with, “In young, untried faith, I nearly invited him to test me, telling him in a long, journaled prayer that wherever he led, I would most certainly go. I banked on my obedience. I would be stalwart, no matter what came. But life came. And the Lord led me to places I longed to escape from: decades of infertility, disease, chronic pain that battered my body for years on end.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The internal contradiction in transgender theories: Trevin Wax explains, “It doesn’t take long to recognize the internal inconsistency between these two narratives. The first depends on maleness and femaleness being something real, for a binary must exist for it to be transgressed or transcended. The second questions reality altogether, falling for a radical skepticism that reimagines the world in terms of linguistic power plays.”

  2. Tasting heaven now: Casey McCall asks, “But what if I told you the Bible presents the resurrection as something you begin experiencing now in this life?

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