David Qaoud

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. 4 Traits to Seek in a Spouse: David Qaoud concludes his sound advice with this, “Everyone marries the wrong person. Everyone is wrong because of sin. But a robust view of total depravity, and a firm understanding of providence, doesn’t mean you should have low standards for who you marry.”

2. I Am My Father’s Son: This is a powerful story of hope from Greg Lucas, who had a terrible relationship with his father. He concludes, “Like my dad, and failing fathers everywhere, I rest in the promises of the gospel. The promise of redemption, forgiveness, and grace. And through these promises I can proclaim with confidence and joy, I am my Father’s son.

3. Sometimes I Think I Hear Singing: Andrea Sanborn encourages us to have ears to hear God’s singing… I read this one twice it was so perfect. She says, “We look for the spectacular, for a jolt of awareness. For miracles. But God, who clothed himself in ordinary flesh, also comes on ordinary days, in just a subtle stirring in the soul; a hint of heaven. Can you sense it?”

4. River Runner: How cool is this tool? Let a raindrop fall anywhere you want in the United States and see where it ends up.

5. America’s Racial History and Christians: In this video, Justin Giboney with a thoughtful response to an important issues for all American Christians. He argues that, to speak faithfully and biblically, “We must not only confront the lies that offend us, but also the lies that serve us.”

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. A Prayer and a Prayer: My friend John Starke compares two prayers, “The first prayer, “Lord, give me patience,” is a prayer that she has learned she ought to pray. But the second is something deeper than a request “give me,” but a lament.”

2. The 50 Countries It’s Most Dangerous to Follow Jesus in 2021: Open Doors’s new list includes North Korea, Afghanistan, followed by Somalia, Libya, Pakistan, Eritrea, Yemen, Iran, Nigeria, and India as the top ten. This Christianity Today report begins with the sobering news that, “Every day, 13 Christians worldwide are killed because of their faith. Every day, 12 churches or Christian buildings are attacked.”

3. Our Patriotic Idolatry: Danny Friederichsen with a timely warning, “Patriotolatry is dangerous because it flies under the radar for so many American Christians. After all, it can feel dangerously like faithfulness.”

4. The Blessing of Our Weariness: David Qaoud with a great reminder and encouragement, “weariness is a reminder that God created you to get stuff done for his glory (Ephesians 2:10). To use an N.D. Wilson expression, “Life is meant to be spent.” Workaholism is bad, but laziness is equally so…Weariness reminds us that idleness is sinful and that our lives are meant to be poured out for the glory of the triune God.”

5. Secret Sins Will Hurt Others: Greg Morse reminds us how significant our battle against sin is, “In this, Satan is a crafty spider, spinning a web of concealed threads sticking to those we never intended to harm.”

6. How to Respond to the News About Ravi Zacharias: Speaking of secret sins: this week a report was issued about an in-depth investigation of Ravi Zacharias which revealed a horrific history of sexual sin and cover-up. Randy Alcorn offers wisdom in how to consider such a devastating report.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1. The Problem with 'Spiritual But Not Religious': This phrase actually masks what the person is trying to say, David Qaoud asserts. His argument is simple and helpful.

2. Think Maturity Rather Than Change: My friend John Starke offers wise counsel. He begins, "Many Christians want to change. We do not like what we are prone to do or the behavioral impulses we display. We long to be different. The New Testament gives us good reason to think we can. “Transformation” is the imagery it often uses."

3. Possibilities and Preferences as We Adjust Our New Normal: My friend Jeff Johnson tells the story of how the chicory root made its way into coffee and how that changed the taste of a long line of coffee drinkers. He concludes, “A crisis induces variation – which is the first step in a successful innovation process. Maybe necessity is not the mother of invention, but the mother of variation. It reshuffles the raw ingredients you have to work with, and the present crisis is doing just that. Not returning to the way things looked before, but to a better version, informed by what we’ve learned – we can hope that that becomes true along many dimensions of our society.”

4. The Handshake: A Eulogy: Tyler Grant believes that the handshake will be one of the victims of COVID-19: a social custom that may never return. He considers what a handshake meant, “There was an intimacy engrained in a handshake — one between people that was culturally acceptable, before now, and allowed you to look someone in the eye while skin-to-skin. This brief touch had always been instructive. Who exudes gravitas. Who projects safety. Who hasn’t worked with their hands.”

5. The Amazing Hummingbird: The engineering of the hummingbird defies the imagination.

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1.      "Nones" are Pursuing Spirituality but Not CommunityStephen Asma at the LA Times with a surprisingly critical take, "Many spiritual nones see themselves as authentic and liberated from the empty formalism of age-old ritual. There is some obvious good in this. But this strain of spirituality is largely detached from religious responsibilities and inconveniences, and it signals a generational shift toward isolation and short-term comfort."

2.      The False Gospel of Expressive Individualism: David Qaoud captures this pervasive phenomena well, "To say it another way, expressive individualism believes that each and every single person has the right to feel, believe, and think about themselves however they so choose. But even more, after you discover yourself (if you like the phrase), you’re free to express yourself. In fact, you must express yourself. Forget about what everyone else thinks. Forgot about any moral compass of right and wrong. Life is about you and your fulfillment. The goal of expressive individualism is to find yourself and express the desires you find."

3.      The Beautifully Tragic Backstories to Three Beloved Hymns: Mike Harland shares three powerful stories behind hymns you have probably sung before. It's amazing how connected creativity and suffering are in our relationship with God. 

4.      Whatever Happened to the Gifts of Language, Prophecy, and Healing? Andrew Wilson with a reflection on the early centuries of the church and the presence of charismatic gifts.

5.      Will These Audio Illusions Fool You? These are pretty fun... and weird!

This Week's Recommendations

This Week's Recommendations

1.      Am I Addicted to My Smartphone? A sobering quiz for a pervasive issue.

2.      Death is a VaporBrian Sauve begins, "Nearly 60,000,000 people die every year on planet Earth. This is one of the things that makes human beings so bewildering. I'm not talking about the fact that people die, but the fact that they take so little time to consider death."

3.      Why Christians Shouldn't Cuss: Ben Archer, considers the reasons "The truth is that a particular word has no inherent sinfulness beyond that which a culture or community assigns to it, nor can it be intrinsically objectionable... This is why Christians don’t cuss: we cherish the purpose for which God gave words."

4.      How to Remember What You Read: David Qaoud's recommendations are great. I also would add that writing reviews on books is a huge aid in memory. His second point is: "I read actively, not passively. I have a highlighter and pen in hand. I highlight what sticks out to me. After reading something particularly inspiring, I’ll stop, close my eyes, and repeat what just inspired me."

5.      Why is Water Slippery? Kids ask the best questions and in this series scientists take on surprisingly complex answers to questions kids ask. Part of the surprise to this answer is how surprisingly strange water is, "How weird is water? Unlike most liquids, it is densest not at its freezing point, but at just a few degrees warmer... Water is safe for us to drink, but also so chemically reactive that it can’t be used to lubricate things like engines because of the damage it will cause inside the machine... Ball said that it’s even weird that water is liquid at all, considering that when the other elements most similar to oxygen link up with hydrogen what they form is a gas."