Church, Culture
John Beeson
Disney Shirts and Being Part of Something Big

I was handed my Mickey Mouse shirt as we packed and told this was what I would wear (I would be matching our son, Soren). Camille and Angel, meanwhile, wore matching Minnie ears and red tank tops. It seemed a little over-the-top to me, but I’ll do anything for my family. On the day of our Disney adventure, we woke up early, got into the virtual queue for the Star Wars ride (which happened to be the best ride at the park—don’t miss it!), and strode out of our hotel down Disney Way. It was then I began to notice something: we were not alone. We passed group after group in matching outfits. “Ahhhh,” I thought, “this is what people do!”

Disney Shirts and Being Part of Something Big
Recommendations, Counseling, Wisdom
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. We’re living in the dystopian future Neil Postman predicted 40 years ago: Brett McCracken says, “From the rising of the sun to its going down, we scroll our way through the day. We scroll our way through life. And we are scrolling ourselves to death.”

  2. Five hard truths about marriage most couples learn too late: Psychologist Mark Travers’s findings echo truths in the Bible, “One of the biggest misconceptions about marriage is that truly compatible people don’t argue. But not only is conflict inevitable, it’s also essential.”

This Week's Recommendations
Biblical Studies, Christian Living, Death
John Beeson
Let not him who straps on his armor boast ...

We would do well to heed Ahab and Roosevelt’s warnings. In our contemporary world, shrunk by media, it is enticing to microwave hot takes for all types of issues. Geopolitical events, religious issues, and economic and social policies entice us to weigh in. We want to know what is right and wrong, good and evil, and we want to hold firm opinions in fields in which we have little to no experience.

Ben-hadad meant “son of Hadad,” the Syrian god of thunder. It’s a fitting name. He was booming and terrifying, but relatively harmless. There are a lot of Ben-hadads out there today, those who dial up every opinion to 100 decibels.

Let not him who straps on his armor boast himself as he who takes it off
Culture, Identity
John Beeson
The Worthlessness of Cool

When I was in high school, swimming was my best sport. I still remember the first time I saw Gary Hall, Jr. swim. I was a freshman and he was a senior. We were at the hallowed grounds of the Plummer Aquatic Center at Arizona State University in Tempe. Gary Hall, Jr.’s father was an Olympic swimmer and Gary Hall Jr. would one day join that class. In fact, Hall would go on to win ten Olympic medals. I had never seen anything like Hall in a pool before. At 6’6” and probably 225 pounds, Hall looked more like a linebacker than a swimmer. In the water, his body rose above the water higher than anyone else’s, seemingly buoyed at his hips by an invisible force. He swam freestyle with a hitch, almost strutting through the water.

The Worthlessness of Cool
Recommendations, Christian Living, Nature, Culture
John Beeson
This Week's Recommendations

  1. An age of extinction is coming. Here’s how to survive. Ross Douthat portends, “The bottleneck of the digital age is different: The new era is killing us softly, by drawing people out of the real and into the virtual, distracting us from the activities that sustain ordinary life, and finally making existence at a human scale seem obsolete.”

  2. Chickens, elephants, and the illusion of freedom. Donal shares a simple, but memorable story, ““the chicken is tied to a tree for so long, that when it is released, as long as it has the string on its ankle (do chickens have ankles?) it thinks it cannot go any further than the length of the original string. It is still attached in its own mind.”

This Week's Recommendations

Identity

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The Worthlessness of Cool

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The Worthlessness of Cool

When I was in high school, swimming was my best sport. I still remember the first time I saw Gary Hall, Jr. swim. I was a freshman and he was a senior. We were at the hallowed grounds of the Plummer Aquatic Center at Arizona State University in Tempe. Gary Hall, Jr.’s father was an Olympic swimmer and Gary Hall Jr. would one day join that class. In fact, Hall would go on to win ten Olympic medals. I had never seen anything like Hall in a pool before. At 6’6” and probably 225 pounds, Hall looked more like a linebacker than a swimmer. In the water, his body rose above the water higher than anyone else’s, seemingly buoyed at his hips by an invisible force. He swam freestyle with a hitch, almost strutting through the water.

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Dear Graduate, Where You Go Does Not Define Who You Are

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Dear Graduate, Where You Go Does Not Define Who You Are

Congratulations class of 2025! Whether you are graduating high school or college, you’ve been asked countless times and will be asked countless more: what’s next? Where are you going?

Maybe you have a set course. You are already rocking that U of A t-shirt and you are confident in four short years your photo will flash on the jumbotron at Arizona Stadium as you walk across the platform, Mechanical Engineering degree in hand. Or, as a college grad, maybe you’ve already said yes to that job offer from Tucson Unified School District and you’re ready to take on the world and 24 third graders.

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The Freedom of Releasing your Motherhood (and Fatherhood)

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The Freedom of Releasing your Motherhood (and Fatherhood)

I sat across from Olivia. Her hands and her voice shook. “All my life I wanted to be a mom. I was so excited to get married, mostly because then I could finally be a mom. Six months after our wedding day we got pregnant. We were so excited! We began picking out names and preparing the nursery. At four months, I miscarried. I was so angry with God. How could he let this happen? Isn’t this what he made me for?”

She began to cry. I let the quietness sit in the room.

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God's Special Calling on Your Life

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God's Special Calling on Your Life

My heart was still beating fast from the rush of adrenaline from speaking to the crowd of several hundred teens. I stepped off the stage on that hot May night and an older man put his hand on my shoulder. “God has a calling on your life, son. You are going to bring revival to your generation.” I was eighteen years old.

The words churned in my heart and mind for many years. Sometimes they were an encouragement. Sometimes they were a burden. They were always aspirational: how amazing would it be to be part of leading revival?

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Behold, the Suffering Servant

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Behold, the Suffering Servant

Isaiah’s prophetic word to Israel contains four Servant Songs. You are probably familiar with the fourth of these, which you may well have read during Holy Week as we considered Christ’s sacrifice for us. As Christians we hold onto the incongruent truths that Christ was exalted and despised. But we sometimes miss the seemingly paradox that the Servant Songs refer to Jesus and us. What is true of Christ is true of us.

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. How much money do I need for retirement? A helpful article from Life Institute no matter how old you are.

  2. Sin causes anxiety, too: Casey McCall with a helpful article reflecting on connection (sometimes) between sin and anxiety, “Christians today would do well to consider sin as a possible cause of mental illness even as we follow Murray’s advice to avoid pinning all mental illness on sin.”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. Three lies that separate spouses: Dave Harvey’s first lie is, “I can’t forgive you until you confess all the sin I see.”

  2. How the gospel answers shame in college students: Connie Leung Nelson explains, “For a long time, when I noticed students withdrawing or heard them voice a sense of shame, my first impulse was to reassure them there was nothing wrong with them. I’d direct them to their accomplishments in an attempt to counteract shame with honor. But pointing students to their work and successes doesn’t un-shame them.

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God's Names and Our Identities

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God's Names and Our Identities

There was a season of worship music from my childhood where a flood of songs were released reflecting on the names of God. El Shaddai, Jehovah Jireh My Provider, and Emmanuel all spring to mind. Interest in the names of God appears to making a comeback in worship as demonstrated by the popularity of Jireh, Yahweh, and Yahweh Elyon.

The names of God have always been dear to his people. The first person in scripture to give God a name is Hagar, who calls God El Roi, “The God who sees”

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This Week's Recommendations

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This Week's Recommendations

  1. A theology of leisure: Reagan Rose with an important piece. She says, “Many Christians have unthinkingly adopted a view of leisure that sees rest time as synonymous with me time. But this is a historical anomaly.”

  2. The church’s unsung hero: the persevering Sunday School teacher: Can we get an amen to Trevin Wax’s post? God bless our amazing faithful teachers! “Committed Sunday school teachers are a big part of what makes discipleship effective. Yet how often do we let weeks and years go by without lifting up their example or celebrating their faithfulness?”

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One Year Old!

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One Year Old!

On October 17, 2023, we (my wife Angel and I) released our first book, Trading Faces. With around four million books published annually (one for every resident of Oklahoma!), an author can feel as though they’re contributing a grain of sand to a beach. And there is truth to that! As the Preacher wisely reminds us in Ecclesiastes,

Is there a thing of which it is said,
    “See, this is new”?
It has been already
    in the ages before us. (Eccl. 1:10)

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