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

Culture

, , ,

Wrestling With Rest

, , ,
Wrestling With Rest

God made Adam and Eve to have dominion over his creation (Gen. 1:26-27). Plants were planted, cultivated, trimmed, and harvested. Delighted in his work, God rested on the seventh day “and made it holy” (Gen. 2:3). This is God’s rhythm: we are invited to work with him for six days and then rest on the seventh. Which is harder for you? Working the six or resting on the seventh?

Rest has been a consistent challenge in my life. As a type A overachiever, the do’s of Christianity come more naturally than the invitation to rest. Our culture struggles with rest. What passes for rest is usually recreation and entertainment. Good things, but not rest.

, , , ,

Jesus the Party Crasher

, , , ,
Jesus the Party Crasher

A 2020 YouGov poll asked respondents, “What is the most important election of your lifetime?” 69% of respondents said it was the current election of 2020. Surprisingly, that number increased with age, with 82% of respondents over 55 years old agreeing. And the American political machine smiles. 2020 shattered the record in political spending, with an astounding $14.4 billion spent: a near doubling of what had been record spending in the 2016 campaign.

, , , , ,

This Week's Recommendations

, , , , ,
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…

,

An Upstream Community

,
An Upstream Community

Last fall we came home from a vacation on a dry day to water streaming down the window pane of our downstairs den in our split-level home. Oh dear.

 

Four months later our Humpty Dumpty house was put back together again. The burst pipe was repaired, the water and mold damage remediated, and the walls and flooring torn out and redone. It turns out that our home didn’t have a pressure regulating valve that would have prevented a massive spike in water pressure causing the pipe to burst. A $150 part could have saved us thousands of dollars in damage.

, , ,

This Week's Recommendations

, , ,
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Young women are leaving church in unprecedented numbers: Daniel Cox and Kelsey Eyre Hammond report, “For as long as we’ve conducted polls on religion, men have consistently demonstrated lower levels of religious engagement. But something has changed. A new survey reveals that the pattern has now reversed.”

  2. Advice for the anxious generation: Jonathan Haidt offers loads of wisdom to parents  in his new book The Anxious Generation. “As for your own interactions with your child, they don't have to be "optimized." You don't have to make every second special or educational.”

, , , , , ,

This Week's Recommendations

, , , , , ,
This Week's Recommendations

  1. The data is clear: people are having less sex: Ryan Burge concludes, “Who would have thought that Mark Zuckerberg building an app to try and meet girls would eventually be one of the causes of declining fertility. But, here we are.”

  2. Climb a mountain, swim a sea, fight a dragon: Tim Challies on grace and works, “I think that if Elisha had told Naaman to do something hard and heroic, he would have gladly done it. If he had been told to climb a mountain or swim a sea or fight a dragon, he would have embarked on so noble a quest.

, , , ,

What If Everyone at Your Church Was Like You?

, , , ,
What If Everyone at Your Church Was Like You?

Is the church biblically sound? Do its leaders bear a faithful witness with their personal lives? Is the theology sound? Does the worship honor Christ? Is there programming that helps those from diverse ages grow in faith? Does it reflect the ethnic diversity of its neighborhood?

This is just the tip of the iceberg of appropriate questions when considering whether a church might be a good fit for us. Most of us have a finely tuned ability to evaluate churches. We’ve developed these skills by combining our biblical knowledge with our experience in our consumer culture.

, , , , ,

This Week's Recommendations

, , , , ,
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Signet, wax, and fire: Chris Martin considers a powerful analogy, “If we simply hammer our hearts with the truth of God’s Word over and over, our hard hearts will either be imprinted with some shallow facsimile of Truth or be cracked by its overwhelming weight.”

  2. The path away from pornography: Chris Hutchinson shares, “There is no “formula” for getting free from pornography: each person, and their situation, is unique. At the same time, just as sexual sin operates in certain patterns, so I’ve witnessed common patterns in the way the Lord breaks people free from its chains.”

, , ,

The Request

, , ,
The Request

Who can forget the Genie?

Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
…take your order, Jot it down
You ain't never had a friend like me

If you were granted one wish, what would you wish for? Maybe you would wish for superpowers. Perhaps fame, money, or love. For many, the answer would be happiness.

There once was a man who was offered a wish by God. God came to King Solomon and offered him whatever he wanted. “At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, ‘Ask what I shall give you’” (1 Kings 3:5).

, , ,

This Week's Recommendations

, , ,
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Sin won’t comfort you: Marshall Segal explains how Satan temps the hurting, “Satan knows how prone we can be to turn to sin in our suffering — and he preys on that weakness.”

  2. Get your son out of his bedroom: Brett and Kate McKay explain, “American men are doing a third less face-to-face socializing than they did twenty years ago. The drop amongst American teenagers is even more staggering: the amount of in-person socializing teens engage in has fallen by almost half since 2003.

Sign up to get The Bee Hive delivered to your inbox and receive a free 50 Books That Changed My Life (and Might Change Yours, Too) download!