Identity, Biblical Studies, Christian Living, Death, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Our Desires Lead to Death

“I am what I feel” sums up expressive individualism.  Our culture frames identity around discovering what our deepest desires and longings are. To know our longings is to know ourselves.

 

In Billie Eilish’s 2023 song “What was I made for?” written for “Barbie,” Eilish reflects on the confusing journey to understand her feelings. It’s this journey, she assures herself that will lead to her happiness.

Our Desires Lead to Death
Spiritual Growth, Christian Living, Forgiveness, Wisdom
John Beeson
A Dire Warning for Me? Where?

“The end is near!” “Repent!”

Have you ever seen a statement of prophetic warning spray-painted on a wall or in a subway station? got to be honest, I don’t take much notice to such warnings. But what if those warnings were for me and for you?

A Dire Warning for Me? Where?
Identity, Parenting
John Beeson
Do You Have a Graduate in Your Life?

We are feeling all the feels. Our youngest, Soren, is about to graduate from high school. This has been a season of reflection for Angel and me and a season of preparation. In our children’s ministry hallways at New Life next to each age level we have containers that represent how many days of influence remain for you as a parent before your child launches. I recognize, of course, that there is no finish line for parenting, but one’s influence and role changes significantly in each season.

 As we look back on our parenting, the most important things we taught our children were who God is and who they were.

Do You Have a Graduate in Your Life?
Fear, Identity, Prayer, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Exchanging Intrusive Thoughts for God-talk

Intrusive thoughts are unwelcome and hard to control. I can remember having intrusive thoughts from the time I was a child. When we drove, I often felt the compulsion to press one foot down on the floor between the telephone poles (and yes, I also hopped over the cracks in the sidewalk). At other times, when walking alone, I remember the persistent thought, “He’s watching you.” I would search the bushes and trees for the one my mind told me was watching me.

Exchanging Intrusive Thoughts for God-talk
Biblical Studies, History, Religion
John Beeson
The Pillaging of Hezekiah

The aged prophet Isaiah showed up at the bedside of the middle-aged king. Hezekiah was only about 39 years old and terminally ill. But the prophet was not bringing good news, “Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover” (Is. 38:1).

The weak king cried out to God, “’ Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight’. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.” (Is. 38:3).

The Pillaging of Hezekiah

compassion

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The Anti-Hero's Final Lesson: Love

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The Anti-Hero's Final Lesson: Love

Do you know what Jonah’s final recorded words were?

Were they words of repentance? Words of gratitude? Words of praise?

Nope. They were words of spite. The last words that Jonah speaks are, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”[i]

Those are not words motivated by suffering or grief. Those are words that come straight out of the hateful heart of our anti-hero, a prophet who cannot bear that God would have compassion on a city he deemed worthy of destruction and upset that the God who provided a plant for shade for him would allow it to wither.

The compassion of God knows no bounds. He orchestrates the salvation of a city that every Jew would have longed to see the destruction of. A city that was not only a military threat to the Israelites, but whose pagan worship was a stench to those loyal to the one true God.

It is the Hero who has the final say in Jonah. These final words reveal God’s love and call us to this deep compassion:

“You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”[ii]

The book of Jonah closes with a glimpse of the compassionate heart of God. Within the final verses of Jonah we see some incredible truths about the depth and power of God’s love:

God’s love is attentive:

Like a caring spouse or parent, no detail is left uncared for by our compassionate God. God’s compassion for his stiff-necked prophet is so deep, he grows a weed up over Jonah to shade him from the sun even as hatred boils in Jonah’s heart for those God loves. God’s love is for the big things (saving a city of 120,000 from destruction), but it also for the small things: Jonah’s discomfort in the heat, and even for the animals. Isn’t that final statement “and also much cattle” beautiful? God cares not just for the people of the city, but for the cattle of the city. God’s love extends to his creation.

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Jonah the Anti-Hero

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Jonah the Anti-Hero

The anti-hero is the new hero. Walter White, the mild-mannered chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin in Breaking Bad, pulled you in as he ascended the heights of the underground world. Don Draper had you rooting for him during his self-destructive descent over the course of Mad Men’s seven seasons. JK Rowling’s pen had readers’ jaws drop to learn that the villain Severus Snape had more to him. And, of course, which lover of The Godfather couldn’t help but root for the complicated Michael Corleone? But the first anti-hero came long before White, Draper, Snape, and Corleone.

Jonah was Walter White before Walter White was Walter White. And yet that’s not how most of us learn the story as children. Jonah is the hero of most children’s Bibles. I still remember hearing the sanitized story of Jonah as a kid. Jonah runs from God, experiences a conversion in the belly of the whale[i], and with newfound fervor converts the metropolis of Nineveh. The end.

The problem with that telling is that the book doesn’t end there at all.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1.      New Study Reveals That Millennials Prioritize Owning a Home over Marriage: In fact, it's worse than that. For Millennials, owning a home and travel both are more important priorities than getting married or having children. 

2.      Ancient People Lived Longer Than You Might Think: This is an interesting article that concludes that, for those who made it to adulthood, the average lifespan was about what it is today. Pretty surprising read.

3.      The Chocolate-ness of Chocolate and the Coffee-ness of Coffee: Jared Wilson reflects on the power of the gospel to enjoy things in the fullness of what they are, and not ask them to be something else, " If I don’t believe the gospel, I will miss out on the joy of the it-ness of things. I will be looking to these things as drugs, as appetite-fillers, as fulfillers, as powers, as gods, as worshipers of the god of myself."

4.      3 People Harmed by Misplaced Compassion: Eric Geiger reminds us that, " Under the banner of “kindness” or “patience,” leaders can fail to care for the overall health of their ministries or organizations."

5.      National Geographic Photography Contest: Scroll through all of the categories. You won't be disappointed.

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The Anti-Hero's Final Lesson: Love

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The Anti-Hero's Final Lesson: Love

Do you know Jonah’s last words in the Bible?

“Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.”[i]

Those are not words motivated by suffering or grief. Those are words that come straight out of the hateful heart of our anti-hero, a prophet who cannot bear that God would have compassion on a city he deemed worthy of destruction and upset that the God who provided a plant for shade for him would allow it to wither.

The compassion of God knows no bounds. He orchestrates the salvation of a city that every Jew would have longed to see the destruction of. A city that was not only a military threat to the Israelites, but whose pagan worship was a stench to those loyal to the one true God.

It is the Hero who has the final say in Jonah. These final words reveal God’s love and call us to this deep compassion:

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Lessons from an Anti-Hero

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Lessons from an Anti-Hero

The anti-hero is the new hero. Walter White, the mild mannered chemistry teacher turned drug kingpin in Breaking Bad, pulled you in as he ascended the heights of the underground world. Don Draper had you rooting for him during his self-destructive descent over the course of Mad Men’s seven seasons. But the first anti-hero came long before White and Draper.

Jonah was Walter White before Walter White was Walter White. And yet that not how most of us learn the story as children.

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