Christian Living, Gratitude
John Beeson
How Hard Is Your Heart?

You can tell a good piece of fruit or vegetable by its color and by its feel. The avocado, though, is tricky. A novice might think that a bright green, hard avocado is the best, but counter-intuitively, the best avocados are dark, with shades of brown, giving easily to the touch. The heart of a growing Christian also gives easily to the touch.

When we seek out counsel, the state of our hearts can resist the very thing we want. A soft heart can turn mediocre counsel into pearls of wisdom. A hard heart will turn the wisest counsel into sawdust.

How Hard Is Your Heart?
Prayer, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Is Jesus the Chaplain of Your Status Quo?

When was the last time you prayed for a miracle?

Do you ever find yourself struggling to pray boldly in your prayers? I do.

Recently the New Life elders had the blessing of praying for a man with multiple sclerosis. I found myself battling over how assertive my prayers for healing ought to be. Should I be praying more for physical healing, or more for strength and faith as he battles the autoimmune disease?

We hold both of these impulses in prayer. To only pray for the miraculous and neglect the formative aspects of suffering is to fall into the lie of the prosperity gospel…

Is Jesus the Chaplain of Your Status Quo?
Recommendations
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Some therapists aren’t telling you the truth: Christopher Cook begins, “Somewhere along the way, a cadre of therapists stopped telling people the truth. What began as a space for self-examination, emotional healing, and forward movement has slowly morphed into a mirror, one that reflects dysfunction and calls it authenticity.”

  2. School choice participation up 25%: Adam Wittenberg reports that, “These gains mark a seismic shift in how America educates its children.”

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Prayer, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
Listen to Your Life

My wife is very comfortable with quiet. I admire her ability to sit peacefully and listen to God. Me? Not so much. I work out with audiobooks or podcasts as my audio backdrop. I write with music on.

There are benefits to this audio soundscape that I live in. It means that I input quite a lot of information. I benefit from many wise voices and am grateful for the gift of music which inspires, soothes, and provokes.

The problem with a life of input is that it can choke out self-reflection and even the voice of God.

Listen to Your Life
Church, Prayer
John Beeson
Pray As You Ought

I was in the service, away at Boot Camp, and I'd discovered that the only place I could gain some reprieve from the grindstone was at church on Sunday mornings.  Much like the rest of the troop who figured it out, I squeezed into the pews, one bald head in fatigues among a throng of bald heads in fatigues.  The chaplain sermonized over the importance of perseverance, and at the end of the service, slapped a Bible in each of our hands. I took to reading that Bible every night after lights out—the first time I ever opened one intentionally in my life.

Pray As You Ought

Prayer

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Listen To Your Life

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Listen To Your Life

My wife, Angel, is very comfortable with quiet. I admire her ability to sit peacefully and listen to God. She intentionally shut down social media over a year and a half ago. Me? Not so much. I work out with audiobooks or podcasts as my audio backdrop. I write with music on.

There are benefits to this audio soundscape in which I live. It means that I input quite a lot of information. I benefit from the teaching of many wise voices and am grateful for the gift of music, which inspires, soothes, and convicts me through the Holy Spirit.

The problem with a life of input is that it can choke out self-reflection and even the voice of God.

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The Front Lines

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The Front Lines

In JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, two of Frodo’s hobbit companions, Merry and Pippin, get kidnapped by the orcs and eventually are rescued by the Ent, Treebeard. Meanwhile, the rest of the Fellowship prepare to confront Saruman and his forces at Isengard, attempting to weaken him so that Frodo and Sam can complete their mission to destroy the ring. In Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation, Merry and Pippin beg the council of Ents (called Entmoot) to make haste so that they can join their friends on the verge of war. They can’t bear to think of not being able to engage side-by-side with their comrades in a fight with such high stakes.

Do you ever feel like you are stuck at Entmoot, watching slow-footed and slow-tongued friends confused about the difference between orcs and hobbits, good and evil, and unsure whether a battle at distant Isengard has anything to do with them? It sometimes feels that we Americans are far from the front lines of the spiritual battle. We are slow-footed and lack urgency.

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The Questions Jesus Asked

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The Questions Jesus Asked

We have lots of questions for God, like:

· “Why do bad things happen?”

· “Why is there only one way to heaven?”

· “Why are some people who follow you hypocrites?”

· “Why don’t you make it more obvious that you are God?”

God invites questions. He wants us to ask him questions! But these questions haunt some. For some, these questions create confusion and stall their faith journey. For others, these questions cause faith to deepen as they wrestle through them with God.

But the path between us and heaven is not one way. God asks us questions, too.

Do you think God has questions for you? What questions does God have for us[DC1] ? When[DC2] God put on flesh and dwelt among us, he offered answers, to be sure. But he asked many questions as well.

What questions did Jesus ask that we ought to answer? As we look at the questions Jesus asks, we find that most of his questions have to do with who he is and what he has done. He also asks heart questions about our motives and sin.

Reflect upon these questions Jesus asks us.

He asks us about our worries:

· And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? Matt 6:27

· And why are you anxious about clothing? Matt 6:28

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That Isn’t a Toy!

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That Isn’t a Toy!

“That isn’t a toy!” parents warn a child playing with a knife or a hammer.

Pharaoh thought he could play a game with God and win. He lost.

Your heart is not a toy.

The story of God’s battle with Pharaoh in the book of Exodus is the story of the consequences of a hardened heart. It’s the story of someone who thought they could toy with God and with their heart. We cannot.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Why the Search for the Church that Meets Your Needs is Futile: Carey Nieuwhof asks, “Should the criteria of a church meeting your needs be the reason you change churches? Well, what if the church was never intended to meet your needs? What if the furthest thing from God’s mind when he created the church was to meet your needs?”

  2. Why You Should Name and Feel Even Negative Emotions: Lara D’Entremont reflects, “I rarely dealt with or named my emotions—at least not the “negative” ones. They had to be killed, banished, ignored, and stuffed. I learned this from both Christian circles (like the counselor above) and my own fears. I didn’t want others to see my emotions. Negative emotions always equaled sin and weakness in my mind, a reason for people to look down their noses at me. So I tried to kill my negative feelings with kindness—or gratitude. But what if there’s goodness in every emotion—even in the ones we don’t like so much?”

  3. Expressive Individualism and the Death of Mental “Illness” Samuel James’s point is worth considering. He says, “Here’s one guess: Personality profiling is the last politically-acceptable way of receiving an identity, rather than crafting one. And many people today are weary of crafting their own custom identity and would very much like to belong to something instead.”

  4. Prayers That God Will Not Answer: Tim Challies begins, “There are times when it seems like God does not hear us. There are times when it seems like God has become deaf to our prayers and unresponsive to our cries. There are times when we seek but do not find, knock but do not find the door opened. Why is it that God sometimes does not answer our prayers?”

  5. Beneath Our Social Justice Strife: Thaddeus Williams has four questions for both sides. He begins, “Over the last five years, the topic of social justice has become something of a jackhammer in some churches, reducing congregations to rubble, shaking denominations, even fracturing fellowship between old friends. Online cloisters have formed in which anyone to our left must be a social-justice-warrior snowflake or a neo-Marxist. And, in other cloisters, anyone to our right is probably a white supremacist or a neo-Nazi. Meanwhile, the exhausted majority feels caught in the crossfire, hoping for some new way forward.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. A Call to Raise Daughters Wise to Domestic Abuse: Excellent article by Jeremy Pierre. He begins, “’If your future husband ever lays a finger on you, you better tell me so I can kill him.’ This is the extent to which many dads address abuse with their daughters. It feels effective because it’s simple, protective, and tough. And it also feels kind of awesome to say.

  2. Loving With a Limp: Chris Thomas writes, “Maybe, like Jacob, an encounter with God will leave you living life with a limp, serving with a limp, worshiping with a limp; loving with a limp.”

  3. Cords Have Memory: Lauren Washer likens the memory of electrical cords with our inner lives. “Our inner lives have a similar type of cord memory. We inherit ideas, values, and belief systems from our families, faith backgrounds, and cultural surroundings. Many of these are good and right. But sometimes, the way we’ve always done things or thought about things, isn’t good.”

  4. Bend Me Toward the Light: Glenna Marshall says, “When I find myself spending copious amounts of time pursuing distractions, my prayer has become one of crooked house plants and branchy, horizontal azaleas: “Lord, bend me toward the Light.” Distractions are just that—distractions. We aren’t meant to spend our time and mental margin on things that do not feed our souls. We’ll wither up and die without spiritual nourishment, especially if our flesh is yearning for what the world offers”

  5. The Anatomy of an Apology: Justin Hale responds to this question, “I recently did something hurtful to a family member. Shortly afterward, I said I was sorry but the person didn’t seem to accept my apology. I’ve tried to reach out but they are giving me a bit of a “cold shoulder.” They still seem bugged about what I did. I feel like I’ve done my part and now it’s up to them to accept the apology. Should I be looking at this differently?”

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Praying for Women with Unwanted Pregnancies

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Praying for Women with Unwanted Pregnancies

Several weeks ago I offered a prayer in the wake of the leaked decision that will likely overturn Roe v. Wade and send the determination of the limitations of abortion back to each state. I also pray for the many women who are fearful as they navigate unexpected and perhaps unwanted pregnancies. I pray for men who selfishly coerce their girlfriends and wives to have abortions. I pray for abusive men to repent and seek help. I pray for protection women who are in abusive relationships. Below is a slightly amended prayer for women who are struggling right now with these types of pregnancies. Would you continue to join me in prayer?

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Church Abuse and the Lies We Tell Ourselves About the Dark

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Church Abuse and the Lies We Tell Ourselves About the Dark

Last week an atomic bomb hit the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, with an estimated 14 million members across more than 47,000 churches. An in-depth investigative report demonstrated that the Executive Committee of the SBC was aware of pervasive sexual malfeasance in their ranks over the past fifteen years and refused to act. The Executive Committee swept sexual abuse allegations under the rug, perpetrators were moved from one congregation to another to hide their abuse, and earnest appeals for reform were denied.

What is the reputation of a denomination when the reputation of Christ is at stake? What is the world's perception worth when the hearts of the vulnerable are on the line?

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Intercessions for Life

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Intercessions for Life

My heart has been conflicted since the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked last week. I praise God that states will have the opportunity to protect the lives of unborn children. I am hopeful that many will step forward to care for children who are put forward for adoption. I prayed for three couples at our church who are currently hoping that God would allow them to adopt and considered how they might hear this news. I was disheartened by the attack on our democratic system by the leak of the decision. I was frustrated by many politicians’ lack of honesty in the explanation of what the ruling means for women. I was aghast by the blatant disregard for the welfare of the conservative justices by the pro-choice group who spread their home addresses.

Have mercy on us, sinners, Wounded Savior.

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