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
Church, Culture, Book Reviews
John Beeson
The Long Journey of Self-Knowledge in a Culture ...

“We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in US history. It is greater than the First and Second Great Awakening and every revival in our country combined...but in the opposite direction.” This is the conclusion of the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America by sociologists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe. In The Great DeChurching, pastors Jim Davis and Michael Graham unpack why and how over the past twenty-five years, forty million of those who formerly attended church no longer do so.

The Long Journey of Self-Knowledge in a Culture of Confusion
Christian Living, Prayer
John Beeson
The Air Raid Siren

Jerusalem, Israel

3:15 am, April 13

 

I sat up in bed to a wailing sound I had never heard before, but knew immediately: an air raid siren. Our building rattled to the booms of interceptors from Israel’s missile defense system hitting their inbound targets. I pulled back the curtains and watched as sprays of light streaked the sky.

 Iran launched 170 drones, 20 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s purported attack on an Iranian embassy in Syria.

The Air Raid Siren
Christian Living, Nature
John Beeson
The Ground Where Saguaros Thrive

Nothing is more iconic to the Tucson landscape than the saguaro. The emblematic cactus is to the Sonoran Desert what the palm tree is to Miami: hard to imagine without it. Saguaros typically live between one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five years, not sprouting its trademark arms until around thirty to seventy years of its life and growing to around fifty feet tall.

For those Sonoran Desert natives, we intuitively know where saguaros thrive. They love the rocky (both granite and volcanic) soil at the foothills of the five beautiful mountain ranges that surround Tucson.

The Ground Where Saguaros Thrive

culture

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Why I’m not an exvangelical: Carey Nieuwhof explains, “I, too, am tired of the abuse, corruption, arrogance, shallow thinking, anti-intellectualism, partisanship, and politicization of the Christian message. I’m done with the racism, toxic culture, and the abuse of power we see again and again.”

  2. What do Mormons believe about marriage? Liesl Counterman explains, “In Mormonism, the bare minimum entrance requirement to eternal life is baptism, but the way to reach the highest heaven is through marriage.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. The question your kids shouldn’t be asking: Melissa Edgington begins, “Sometimes Christian parents feel a bit lost in the culture while raising kids. You wonder how to handle the internet, social media, shows, and music. You wonder how much to tell your kids about some of the things they’re encountering in their social circles, like gender and sexuality. You aren’t even sure what you think about some of these things or what a biblical response is to some of the more complicated questions and demands of the culture they’re experiencing. But there is one decision you can make as a Christian parent that is easy.”

  2. America’s abandoned megaprojects: Did you know that a dome was almost built over Manhattan?

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How To Flee the Trap of Lust

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How To Flee the Trap of Lust

Let’s be honest: the standard Jesus calls us when it comes to lust can feel profoundly unfair. It is God, after all, who created us as physical beings. It is God who created us as sexual beings. It is God who gave us desires. God gave us libido. And God gave us an imagination.

And in all this, God has created us in his image! God is the being with the most powerful desires in the universe! What kind of image-bearers would we be if we did not also have desires?

In recognizing that God created us as desiring beings, we acknowledge that God has called us to direct those desires to himself and his righteousness.  

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Could lust send me to hell?

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Could lust send me to hell?

Our culture toys with lust. We know the power of sexual desire so well that we use it to sell hamburgers, cars, and beer. I mean, seriously. Step back and consider how crazy that is. We take things that are already attractive and then add sex to them to sell them better! Burgers, sports cars, and beer! We crave these things on their own! And yet advertisers are still compelled to add an ingredient to make them even more desirous: sex. On the flip side, you never see sex requiring anything else to sell it. Your local strip club isn’t trying to lure people in with their mouthwatering hamburgers.

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Does Jesus tell us we “can’t get no satisfaction”? Our struggle against lust for something greater

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Does Jesus tell us we “can’t get no satisfaction”? Our struggle against lust for something greater

According to one survey, more than 75% worldwide agree that adultery is wrong. The vast majority of us agree: adultery hurts marriages and children.

And yet, simultaneously, our culture encourages us to pursue our desires and fulfill our passions. There are cracks in that approach. The #metoo movement uncovered the devastating impact of some men living out this sexual philosophy.

Jesus pointed to the crack in this moral pavement two thousand years ago. He says that our sexual offense, our sexual sin, doesn’t begin with the action but with the heart:

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Am I Good Enough?

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Am I Good Enough?

How good am I? Am I good enough?

We all wrestle with these questions in different ways and at different times. We reflexively answer these questions through comparison. How happy am I? How generous am I? How successful am I? How smart am I? We consider our family, friends, and neighbors and make an evaluation.

But if the age of social media has taught us anything, hasn’t it taught us how destructive comparison is? Hasn’t it shown us that comparison reveals the basest version of ourselves? Hasn’t social media taught us how fragile and finicky the rubric of comparison is?

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How To Battle Lust

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How To Battle Lust

Sexuality saturates our culture. The human heart, already an engine inclined toward malformed desires, has plenty of fuel available via the internet alone to propel it toward disaster. How can we remain pure in a world bent on dragging us into impurity?   

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Would You Help The Hurting?

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Would You Help The Hurting?

During a crisis, we feel a sense of urgency to step in and take charge. But we must wisely sit in the backseat if we want our assistance to have long term effectiveness.  If the affected population is not bought-in in terms of leadership and on-the-ground help, aid fails. In fact, there have been many instances where outside help has shown to be unnecessary and unhelpful. In short, “Avoid paternalism. Do not do things for people that they can do for themselves.”

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How to Get Married

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How to Get Married

The Knot recently did a study and found that over the past seven years, weddings in churches have dropped from 41% to 26%.[i] Wow. Only a quarter of weddings now take place in a church.

This fact itself isn’t catastrophic. I don’t believe that one has to get married in the church for it to be a “real” wedding. But it does speak to a secularizing trend that has been pretty apparent. More disconcerting for me is the fact that 43% of weddings are now officiated by a friend, up from 29% seven years ago.[ii] The Bible doesn’t say you need a pastor to officiate your wedding, but choosing a (non-pastor) friend to officiate your wedding makes a statement.

You’re saying that your wedding is about celebrating your relationship with friends. That’s a wonderful part of what a wedding should be, but it shouldn’t be what your wedding is primarily about.

If you are considering marriage at some point in the future, let me urge you to consider making your marriage about something bigger and then doing some practical things to make sure your wedding points to that bigger truth.

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