Faith, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
When God Shows Up and You Miss Him

It took me nine years after the terrible incident to recognize that God was present. At the time, the experience felt more like an attack from the enemy than a gift from God. But as I processed the event with others who had been there, a lightbulb went on. When I began to see the good fruit that had come from that nightmare, I recognized God at work in ways I had previously missed.

Have you ever missed God at work?

The disciples were certainly not immune to this. Jesus was ministering in Galilee when a great crowd followed him into a desolate place.

When God Shows Up and You Miss Him
Recommendations, Counseling, Family, Nature, Parenting, Spiritual Growth
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

    1. How to have a soft heart: Katie Laitkep says, “When the season you expected to be brief stretches from months to years, layered with added pressures in other areas of your life, the weight of it all doesn’t just exhaust your body; it changes how you see the world. You grow more guarded. You lower your hopes, expecting disappointment and attempting to protect yourself from anyone or anything that could cause more pain, whether it’s people, circumstances, or God Himself.”

    2. What is wrong with the world? Paul David Tripp answers, “When we are looking for answers to the world’s problems, we can begin in an unlikely place: the doctrine of sin.

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Faith, Spiritual Growth, Wisdom
John Beeson
The Spirit's Voice

“Pastor, I was really touched when you said…”

One of my favorite parts of pastoral ministry is hearing how Scripture, sermons, Bible studies, and blog posts are shaping the lives of people in the congregation.  

A common occurrence in these conversations is when someone tells me I said something in a sermon that I did not actually say. What happened? Usually, it’s not because the person was inattentive.

The Spirit's Voice
Recommendations, Culture, Gratitude
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Two ways to worry about AI: Alan Noble begins, “If you’ve followed some of the news in AI recently, you might be feeling scared. Concerning stories have been coming from two leading AI companies this summer.”

  2. What gratitude was never meant to do: Tracy Harper says, “We run into problems with gratitude, though, when we use it as a countermeasure to avoid the thoughts and emotions that disappointment brings to the surface. God was prompting me to sit with the deeper question of why this mattered so much to me, and I couldn’t use my list of blessings to avoid going there with him.”

This Week's Recommendations
Christian Living, Consumerism, Culture, Generosity
John Beeson
How Can I Excuse Myself

You’re running a day care center that closes at 5pm. You notice a handful of parents pick up their children late. Every time a parent arrives late it impacts you: you must stay late—family dinners and events are lost. What do you do? Realizing that your honor system isn’t cutting it, you start charging a fine for arriving late.   

And then the unexpected happens: the number of late-arriving parents doubles.

This experiment was run by economists trying to help an Israeli daycare. The results confounded the researchers.

How Can I Excuse Myself

Are prophetic warnings legit in this day and age?

, , ,

A Dire Warning for Me? Where?

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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?

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This Warning is for You!

, ,
This Warning is for You!

“The end is near!” “Repent!”

Have you ever seen a statement of prophetic warning spray-painted on a wall or in a subway station? Did you ever consider that statement might be for you? I’ve got to be honest, I don’t take much notice to such warnings.

Now, transport yourself back to the 7th century BC. You’re a Moabite living just across the Dead Sea from the Kingdom of Judah (the Southern Kingdom of Israel). One of the Jewish prophets speaks prophetic warnings over your country. Do you take any more heed to those warnings than I do to a spray-painted subway warning?

Why would the God of Israel speak a warning to a foreign country to the Israelites? I believe a strange section of Jeremiah shows us both God’s mercy and his patience with unbelievers even today.

The other day as I was nearing the end of Jeremiah’s prophecy, a section stood out to me like a sore thumb. After several dozen chapters devoted to warning Israel, Jeremiah carves out six chapters to warn other nations: Egypt, Philistia, Moab, and Babylon at the targets of Jeremiah’s warnings. In the middle of a book of warning and prophecy to Israel, God sends his warning to the nations.

These are not sugar-coated prophecies. These have all the brashness of the graffiti on the subway wall. God says things like:

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