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
Leadership, Wisdom, Vocation
John Beeson
Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB

I drove a little manual 2005 Scion xB for about eight years. It finally gave out after 230,000 miles. I loved that little car. It was fuel-efficient and required minimal maintenance. But it is undeniably close to the least powerful car on the road. I’m pretty sure that on its specs, next to 0-60mph, it says, “Eventually!”

Unless I was lined up against someone from a nearby retirement community, I was the last car to reach the speed limit coming off a stoplight. Unsurprisingly, more aggressive drivers with more powerful vehicles tended to treat my little Scion like a safety cone on the road, more like an obstacle than a fellow traveler.

Anger, Retaliation, and My Scion xB
Family, Leadership, Parenting, Marriage
John Beeson
The Top Ten Ways to Lead in Your Home (and ...

In the past post we considered the biblical priority of leading in our homes before stepping into leadership callings outside of our home.

When I was asked to speak to our Mom’s Matter group on leading well in the home I was a bit intimidated. I felt far from equipped to speak as a man to women on the topic of leadership. And so, I did the only thing I could think of: I asked wise, godly women who were also great leaders. Starting with my wife, I began to listen to the advice my female friends offered on leadership in the home and beyond.

The Top Ten Ways to Lead in Your Home (and Organization, Too!)
Christian Living, Family, Marriage, Parenting
John Beeson
Leadership In Your Home and Beyond

Who are the most influential leaders in your life? What made them such great leaders?

I fear that our cultural understanding of leadership is going further astray from true leadership. We Americans seem to have a bizarre attraction to two types of leaders: celebrities and powerful communicators with bold, brash opinions. We judge leaders by the size of their platform.

Some time ago I was asked to speak to the Moms Matter group in our church about healthy leadership in the home and beyond. One of the comments made by the leadership team was that many moms believe they “don’t need to be or can’t be a leader because they are just moms.” We can all similarly dismiss ourselves.

Leadership In Your Home and Beyond

Garden of Eden

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What is Heaven? It is also a New Earth

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What is Heaven? It is also a New Earth

When I trusted Christ as a young boy, I remember thinking that the one downside of being a Christian was the boring afterlife that now awaited me. “I hope Jesus doesn’t return before I go to high school… before I get married… before I have kids,” I thought. There is a classic Gary Larson cartoon that captures my worst fears about heaven: “Wish I’d brought a magazine," the bored saint reflects.

I recently asked a group of sixth grade boys what they thought heaven would be like, and their picture of heaven mirrored what mine was at their age: a worship service that never ended, standing around the throne of God and singing song after song after song after song.

I mean, I liked church more than the average kid. I even sat through “big church” with my parents and liked the singing and preaching. But doing that forever? In the words of the old hip hop group OutKast, “Foreva eva?”[i]

Good news, friends. This won’t be the sum of heaven.

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The Not-So-Insignificant Danger of Ingratitude

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The Not-So-Insignificant Danger of Ingratitude

There is a deadly gas that contaminates the air we breathe. The toxic gas appears unthreatening because everyone appears to breathe it in and breathe it out as harmlessly as oxygen.

The poison is ingratitude. And it is everywhere.

Everything (that I don’t have) is Awesome

Psychologists agree that social media has made us less happy. Why is that? Because the constant access into others’ lives taps into our propensity toward ingratitude. We are surrounded by neighbors with nicer cars, friends who take better and longer vacations, couples who are happier, and everyone seems to be fitter and better dressed than we are. And it’s all there for us to see tucked into that powerful, shiny rectangle in our pockets. Every minute of every day.

“Hamilton” came to Tucson this week and I watched as my Facebook feed was filled with pictures of those who gushed over the show. We were blessed to attend and so my heart was guarded against jealousy. But where will my heart be in the spring when I am unable to attend a show I was really hoping to go to because I have a scheduling conflict?

The Ancient Beginnings of Ingratitude.

The story of how it all fell apart is a story you’ve heard. God’s perfectly ordered creation and Adam and Eve’s response of gratitude lasts all of two chapters. God creates man and woman. He invites them to live alongside himself in perfect peace. He names them as king and queen over this paradise and grants them great latitude in their reign.

He creates a tree in the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and he says “Everything is yours for taking and enjoying except this one. This one you need to stay away from.”[i] Will they be content with the 99.9% of what they were given, orwill they be discontent with the .1% they weren’t given? Will ingratitude set it? That .1% was the sliver Satan slid through.

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What is Heaven? It's Physical

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What is Heaven? It's Physical

When I trusted Christ as a young boy, I remember thinking that the one downside of being a Christian was the boring afterlife that now awaited me. “I hope Jesus doesn’t return before I go to high school… before I get married… before I have kids,” I thought. There is a classic Gary Larson cartoon that captures my worst fears about heaven: “Wish I’d brought a magazine," the bored saint reflects.

I recently asked a group of sixth grade boys what they thought heaven would be like, and their picture of heaven mirrored what mine was at their age: a worship service that never ended, standing around the throne of God and singing song after song after song after song.

I mean, I liked church more than the average kid. I even sat through “big church” with my parents and liked the singing and preaching. But doing that forever? In the words of the old hip hop group OutKast, “Foreva eva?”[i]

Good news, friends. This won’t be the sum of heaven.

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The Danger of Ingratitude

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The Danger of Ingratitude

There is a deadly poison that contaminates the air we breathe. It’s a poison that, if we are aware of it at all, seems innocuous to us both because everyone else is breathing it in, and as far as we’re aware of it, others are breathing more of it in than us.

The poison is ingratitude. And it is everywhere.

Everything (that I don’t have) is Awesome

Psychologists agree that social media has made us less happy. Why is that? Because the constant access into others’ lives taps into our propensity toward ingratitude. We are surrounded by neighbors with nicer cars, friends who take better and longer vacations, couples who are happier, and everyone seems to be fitter and better dressed than we are. And it’s all there for us to see tucked into that powerful, shiny rectangle in our pockets. Every minute of every day.

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