Family, Parenting, Relationships, Religion, Wisdom
John Beeson
Your Soccer Coach Has a Plan for Your Life

“The coach says that he has the talent to play D-1 one day.” A friend’s son had just tried out for an elite club soccer team and they were weighing the decision. The travel club came with a hefty price tag and a commitment to regular out-of-town tournaments. They would say yes to the club. In a few years their son would burn out from playing soccer. But the impact on their family couldn’t be undone. They had built the patterns of their family in their kids’ early years around healthy spiritual rhythms, including regular church attendance. Club soccer changed those patterns.

Your Soccer Coach Has a Plan for Your Life
Recommendations, Death, Biblical Studies, Leadership, Nature
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Relating to a narcissist: Ed Welch with a thoughtful and empathetic treatment of a growing concern, “Diagnostic labels have their benefits and liabilities. They can help you see certain behaviors. They can also blind you by leading you to believe that everything is a result of the diagnoses, which it is not. For the person who wears the label, the word can be meaningless or offensive. It will not help.”

  2. 6 kinds of hearers of God’s Word: Brian Najapfour pulls his list straight from scripture. For instance, “She knows that she has blemishes, but she is afraid to face them. Like someone who avoids the doctor for fear of a bad diagnosis, Mrs. Afraid resists the conviction of the Word. She does not want to be confronted with the cost of repentance.”

This Week's Recommendations
Wisdom, Education, Family, Parenting
John Beeson
Not Enough Wisdom

It was a cool February afternoon three years ago, our family piled in our aptly named Escape heading East on the I-8. We weave our way through Laguna Summit and the Cleveland National Forest, summiting the final miles of California and her Santa Ana Mountains on our way back to our home in the Sonoran Desert.

We just visited Concordia University, Irvine, a Lutheran school where our eldest, Camille, was offered a generous scholarship. Camille fell in love with Concordia’s professors, mission, and solid theological foundation on the trip. We rejoiced at her finding such a perfect fit for her. And we mourned her impending departure.

Not Enough Wisdom
Nature, Worship
John Beeson
Grateful Dust

Today I have the privilege of sharing a poem from my daughter, Camille. She is currently working at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and composed this poem as a praise to the Lord, my Rock (praise to the Lord, my Rock (YHWH Tsuri, see Ps. 18:2, for instance). Note also that ebneezers are stone monuments that memorialize the Lord’s help (see 1 Sam. 7:12, for instance). Finally, “ranan” means “to shout for joy” in Hebrew. -John

Grateful Dust
Recommendations, Culture, Marriage, Leadership, Relationships
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. Jesus doesn’t use fake plants: Casey McCall writes, “I get the appeal of fake plants. We want the fruit without the work, the aesthetic without the need to provide care. In my house, we’ve killed our fair share of indoor plants by neglecting to provide water and sunlight. Nonetheless, I’d rather have no plants than fake ones.”

  2. Discipline, delight, and staying on the path: Glenna Marshall begins, “My husband and I took our kids on a hike not too long ago, and before we hit the trail, we warned both of our sons to stay on the path at all times. The woods were filled with poison ivy, and one of my sons is quite the explorer.

This Week's Recommendations

Christian Living

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Representatives Misrepresenting

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Representatives Misrepresenting

A recent survey found that Americans agree that our democracy is in peril. What is the threat to democracy? In short: them. And how do we fix democracy? Doing whatever it takes, even if it means bending the rules (or, as the poll creatively posed, “going outside of existing rules”—how many parents would accept that excuse from their kids!).

The one thing both sides of the political aisle apparently agree on is that the ends justify the means. As long as their side wins, how they achieve that perceived good makes any questionable ethics deployed okay.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. New Study Changes Understanding of Depression: Three counselors I respect make sense of an important new study about serotonin and depression. They share, “Most people believe depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, but this assumption has been challenged by a recent medical study titled “The Serotonin Theory of Depression.” The project, led by Dr. Joanna Moncrieff of the University College of London, was an umbrella review, a survey of the major psychiatric research on the link between depression and serotonin, the neurotransmitter psychiatrists have long cited as the most likely chemical cause of depression. After reexamining and collecting much of the relevant and reliable research, the study concluded there is ‘no convincing evidence that depression is caused by serotonin abnormalities.’”

  2. Give Him Your Acorns: I’m sure you’ll love this beautiful story that Brianna Lambert shares about her son. “Instead of squeezing harder, my son knew where the safest place was for his acorns—in someone else’s hand. He was sure the hands of his bigger, stronger, wiser mother were more capable of keeping his treasures safer than his own. His complete confidence in my protection was humbling, and it’s an attitude Jesus invites all of his followers to share.”

  3. Driven By Awe: Fighting Sin: James Williams considers that perfect slice of chocolate cake, “There was a war going on in my heart. Two competing desires battling within me. Do I ditch the diet and enjoy the cake? Or, do I resist its calls and carry on toward my goals?”

  4. Shame Off You: Rich Villados encourages us, “In a broken world, trauma—and the attending shame—will continue to be with us. But, by the grace of God, it doesn’t have to consume us. It can be redeemed. For all its strangeness, that is the good news of the gospel.”

  5. Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Bees make a couple of appearances in this stunning collection. I think my favorite might be the photo of the sea lion.

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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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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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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. American’s Theological Beliefs Change to Suit Post-Pandemic Practice: A new survey shows continued shifts in American theological beliefs. For instance, “In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was just beginning in the United States, 58% of Americans said worshipping alone or with one’s family was a valid replacement for regularly attending church, with 26% strongly agreeing. In 2022, 66% believe worshiping apart from a local congregation is as valid as worshiping with one, with 35% strongly agreeing.”

2. Three Rules That Will Help You Stop Gossip Dead in Its Tracks: Carey Nieuwhof’s insight is dead on. He says, “Too often, gossip not only goes unchecked but gets rewarded. Too many church ‘prayer’ groups become thinly disguised gossip sessions. People get hurt. Some leave, and even if most people stick around, a gossiping culture is rarely the kind of culture unchurched people are attracted to.”

3. Undersea Refuge and Strength: Timarie Friesen invites us to consider the hermit crab, strength, and weakness. Her post is so good. She says, “Crustaceans are tough, but hermit crabs lack strength in their flimsy tails. God created hermit crabs to defer to weakness and then salvage an empty seasnail shell as a covering. They carry with them a home and a fortress.

4. Heroes, Dragons, and Other True Myths: James Shrimpton begins, “Have you ever wondered why so many cultures have the same myths—stories about a brave hero slaying a monster and saving a damsel in distress?...It’s because they’re true.”

5. Should Christians Own Guns for Self-Defense? A Global Perspective: Interesting to hear Christian leaders from around the world weigh in on whether gun ownership for the purpose of self-defense is appropriate.

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Grieving God’s Heart

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Grieving God’s Heart

When was the last time you grieved? Can you remember how your stomach was turned in knots? Did you have difficulty breathing? How did your body respond to the emotional pain of grief? We physically feel our emotional and spiritual pain. God’s pain isn’t less than ours, it is greater. Do you think it’s possible to hurt God’s feelings? Because that’s what we do every time we sin. Our sins break God’s heart.

Our fickle and deceptive hearts whisper lies to us, “No one will know.” “This won’t hurt anyone.” “Protect yourself.” “It’s really not that bad.” “It only happened once.” Even if those lies are true about others (are they ever?), they are never true about God. Our sins grieve God.

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How can I Forgive Them?

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How can I Forgive Them?

“Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die,” Marianne Williamson once said. Look into the eyes of the most bitter person you know and you’ll find unforgiveness. We can all identify the destructive power of unforgiveness in others, but our own unforgiveness is much more slippery to identify. We have a host of reasons why we wouldn’t release someone willy-nilly who has hurt us.

“How can I forgive them?” It’s a question spoken out of a yearning to release the one who has inflicted injury. It’s a question that is spoken out of hurt and sometimes anger.

How do we forgive the person who keeps sinning against us? How do we forgive the one who sins against us in a grievous way? How do we forgive the individual who sins against us and isn’t repentant?

Forgiveness is mandatory as a Christian. In his depiction of how we ought to pray, Jesus ties up with our forgiveness with the forgiveness we offer, “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matt 6:12).

Knowing that we will probably choke on that commandment, Jesus offers an explanation for the stakes of our forgiveness at the end of his prayer, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt 6:14-15). Goodness gracious. There it is, in black and white. We must forgive the one who has offended us.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. 5 Truths Those with Jobs Need to Hear: Daniel Darling’s post is loaded with important truth. He says, “The gospel changes the way we see our work. It adds a newfound significance. It elevates us from hum-drum, cynical employees to servants of the King. Every day may not feel like heaven, but every day at the job matters in heaven.

2. Wade in the Water: Seth Lewis offers insight on the priests wading in the waters of the Jordan before God parted the river. He says, “the feet of the priests were still wet. They were wet because they had to “wade in the water” before God “troubled the water” for them. They had to obey before they saw the provision.”

3. How to See Mt. Ranier: Rick Conrad with a great little illustration about seeing the Bible as God’s Word, “And so, if you do want to see the glory of Mt. Rainier (and I do recommend it), there are two things that need to happen. First of all, God needs to remove the fog. And secondly, you need to be standing in a place where, if the fog is lifted, you will have a view of the mountain.”

4. Take Time to Be Unproductive: Kelly Kapic’s article hit me between the eyes. He starts his post with this thought, “Søren Kierkegaard, a nineteenth-century Danish theologian and social critic, once wrote in his journal, “The result of busyness is that an individual is very seldom permitted to form a heart.” We sense in our souls he is right. Unrelenting busyness — running here and there, late and in haste, always with more to do than we have time for — stifles the life of the heart.”

5. Be Still: Lee Hutchings confesses, “I never made a conscious decision to avoid or keep away from quiet. But as I evaluate my regular habits and routines, I am startled to observe that most of my day is filled with continuous screens, sounds, and other noise, which in and of themselves can be wonderful and advantageous. I suspect I'm not alone.”

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It's (Not) Too Late to Apologize

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It's (Not) Too Late to Apologize

“It’s too late to apologize,” Timbaland sang to his girlfriend who he couldn’t trust any longer.

The 2007 song struck a chord. How many of us have people in our lives that we can’t imagine forgiving? How many of us have people in our lives we can’t imagine apologizing to? We can’t imagine apologizing to them, because of that, or right now. Better to just try to make it up, or smooth it over, we tell ourselves.

“It’s too late to apologize.”

We live in an apology-averse culture. We are allergic to repentance and equally allergic to forgiveness.

Think about it. When was the last time someone repented to you? I mean, truly repented?

Not long ago a congregant apologized to me. The email began this way (I’ve tweaked it only to protect the one who sent it), “I might have been a little harsh in my email.. I had a very bad week…” In further communication, the individual referenced their apology. Internally I scratched my head. “When did they apologize?” I dug back through the email thread and saw those phrases. That is what they were referencing.

“I might have…” followed by an excuse is no apology.

I don’t say that to attack the individual I am referencing. In fact, I completely understand why, given the slipperiness of our hearts, and in our culture, they would think that they had apologized.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

1. Money is Not the Problem: Paul Tripp with some important but hard truth about our relationship with money, "Money sanity does not begin with a budget but with humble, honest, and heart-level confession that is without excuse or shifting the blame. Where, when it comes to your money, is God calling you to honest confession of heart and hands?"

2. Pastors Identify What Idols Their Congregations Struggle With: Marissa Postell shares recent research in which "[M]ore than half of U.S. Protestant pastors believe comfort (67%), control or security (56%), money (55%) and approval (51%) are idols that have significant influence on their congregations." Parenthetically, perhaps most alarming to me was that the numbers were as low as they were… and that 14% of pastors said their congregations don't struggle with any (!) of these idols.

3. Five Questions I Wish My Accountability Partner Would Ask Me: This is surprisingly good, and I encourage you to incorporate it with your close friends. Brad Hambrick begins by explaining that he doesn't like the term "accountability partner." He says, "Can I contradict the title of this post in the first sentence? I don't like the word "accountability partner" any more than I like the word "diet," and I dislike them both for the same reason. They sound like an exception and a punishment rather than a lifestyle and a gift."

4. Ashamed Sinner, Unashamed Savior: Erik Raymond encourages us, "When you're in the midst of guilt and shame—which we should rightly feel in the midst of sin—we have to take all that he has done and his promises to God and see that he's actually not ashamed of us. It's not that he excuses sin, but he welcomes sinners."

5. Terrestrials: The Mastermind: This NPR podcast examining the intelligence of octopi is aimed at kids, but I had so much fun listening to it, and I bet you will also.

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