“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?
Do You Have a Graduate in Your Life?
We are feeling all the feels. Our youngest, Soren, is about to graduate from high school. This has been a season of reflection for Angel and me and a season of preparation. In our children’s ministry hallways at New Life next to each age level we have containers that represent how many days of influence remain for you as a parent before your child launches. I recognize, of course, that there is no finish line for parenting, but one’s influence and role changes significantly in each season.
As we look back on our parenting, the most important things we taught our children were who God is and who they were.
This Week's Recommendations
Who would I be if I was happy? Trevin Wax warns us, “Many young people are increasingly drawn to establishing and expressing their identities through their psychological maladies.”
Wherever he leads, I’ll go: Glenna Marshall shares a story I bet you might identify with, “In young, untried faith, I nearly invited him to test me, telling him in a long, journaled prayer that wherever he led, I would most certainly go. I banked on my obedience. I would be stalwart, no matter what came. But life came. And the Lord led me to places I longed to escape from: decades of infertility, disease, chronic pain that battered my body for years on end.”
Exchanging Intrusive Thoughts for God-talk
Intrusive thoughts are unwelcome and hard to control. I can remember having intrusive thoughts from the time I was a child. When we drove, I often felt the compulsion to press one foot down on the floor between the telephone poles (and yes, I also hopped over the cracks in the sidewalk). At other times, when walking alone, I remember the persistent thought, “He’s watching you.” I would search the bushes and trees for the one my mind told me was watching me.
The Pillaging of Hezekiah
The aged prophet Isaiah showed up at the bedside of the middle-aged king. Hezekiah was only about 39 years old and terminally ill. But the prophet was not bringing good news, “Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover” (Is. 38:1).
The weak king cried out to God, “’ Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight’. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.” (Is. 38:3).
This Week's Recommendations
Britain’s loneliest sheep: Stephen Steele begins, “A high-profile new resident arrived in South West Scotland recently – a ewe once known as ‘Britain’s Loneliest Sheep’. Fiona, as she has been named, was rescued after being stranded for more than two years at the foot of cliffs in the Scottish Highlands.”
When the walk becomes a crawl: David Powlison exhorts us, “The key to getting a long view of sanctification is to understand direction. What matters most is not the distance you’ve covered. It’s not the speed you’re going. It’s not how long you’ve been a Christian. It’s the direction you’re heading.”
The Long Journey of Self-Knowledge in a Culture of Confusion
“We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in US history. It is greater than the First and Second Great Awakening and every revival in our country combined...but in the opposite direction.” This is the conclusion of the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America by sociologists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe. In The Great DeChurching, pastors Jim Davis and Michael Graham unpack why and how over the past twenty-five years, forty million of those who formerly attended church no longer do so.
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.
This Week's Recommendations
Why I’m not an exvangelical: Carey Nieuwhof explains, “I, too, am tired of the abuse, corruption, arrogance, shallow thinking, anti-intellectualism, partisanship, and politicization of the Christian message. I’m done with the racism, toxic culture, and the abuse of power we see again and again.”
What do Mormons believe about marriage? Liesl Counterman explains, “In Mormonism, the bare minimum entrance requirement to eternal life is baptism, but the way to reach the highest heaven is through marriage.”
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.