Pursuing God with Gene Appel

The person sitting next to you at church this weekend is someone you'll be spending eternity with. That new believer who doesn't know anybody yet needs you to reach out. And that Christian you've had a sharp disagreement with, the one you've criticized behind their back, God is probably going to tell you to spend the next thousand years with them and work it out. The relationsh...

Powerless is not a terrible place to end up. It's actually the beginning of something. The Bible teaches that by admitting weakness you access strength you never had before. Not your strength. God's. When you finally release your white-knuckled grip on the problem and say "I can't do this," that's when He can. Think about the person who spends three hours assembling f...

The road to recovery always starts with the same admission: I am powerless. That's not a defeat statement. It's the most liberating sentence you may ever say. Here's what makes it so hard though: we settle the biggest question of existence with God and then spend the rest of our days trying to manage everything else on our own. Good intentions aren't enough. Willpower isn'...

"I can handle it. I can stop the spending, the drinking, the gambling, let go of the hurt, any time I want." What we're really saying is: I'm quite capable of being God myself. And that's actually humanity's oldest problem. It goes all the way back to the Garden. The desire to call the shots, control the image, manage the pain, fix the problem without any outside help...

David committed adultery, had the woman's husband murdered, and told himself he was doing just fine. It took a friend named Nathan, someone more committed to truth-telling than to keeping the peace, to say: you've sinned and you don't even know it. And here's the remarkable part: David didn't fire back. He humbled himself and said, you're right. He later wrote that hi...

The twelve steps come right out of Scripture. The Bible is the original recovery manual. And the steps to recovery are always the same regardless of what you need recovery from. So here's the honest question: what has you in a straitjacket? The thing you can't shake, can't quit, can't stop thinking about. From the outside you look fine. But inside something is wrapped around yo...

A man had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. And before healing him, Jesus asked him something that seems almost strange: do you want to get well? It's as if Jesus was highlighting the man's own responsibility in the matter. He had to choose. Here's what most people miss: when you break the unhealthy cycles in your own life, your children will not have to unlearn what you had t...

Most of us have never been given practical tools for handling conflict well. Start with prayer,  designate a time and place for a talk, not a debate.  If you feel stuck, seek advice from someone who has the kind of relationships you actually want, not someone who will just take your side. If things still aren't resolving, consider counseling. So this week, pick one of these tools and identify...

Why You Have to Put Your Own Oxygen Mask on First | Pursuing God With Gene Appel Every flight starts with the same instruction before takeoff: put your own oxygen mask on before helping others. Your relationship with God is the oxygen mask. What you receive from that relationship, the patience, the humility, the spirit of reconciliation, is exactly what you have to give to the people at home. You...

Most of us handle conflict the way we were taught, even when what we were taught wasn't healthy. There are four styles that show up again and again. The Eskimo, where nobody talks about the tension and everyone just waits for it to thaw. The Cowboy, where you square off and start firing verbal bullets that wound but never resolve. The Escape Artist, who disappears into distraction or shutdown...

Every significant relationship in your life will face a moment of conflict. Marriage, family, friendships. It is not a question of if but when. And without practiced emergency procedures, things spiral fast. Most of us revert to the only conflict management style we ever witnessed, usually whatever was modeled in our families growing up. Even if that script was unhealthy, it's the one we know...

The Sabbath was never meant to be a burden. Jesus said it was created for our good. The fourth commandment has two instructions buried in it: take time off, and begin worshipping. Not one or the other. Both. Tony Campolo put it simply: we leak. You fill up, burn through it by midweek, and by Friday, you're running on empty. God knows that because He made you. And His solution is a weekly rhyt...

By Friday afternoon, a lot of us are emotional messes. We just can't see it. Everyone around us can, but we're too depleted to notice. The warning signs are there, though: irritability, impatience, self-pity, loss of perspective, and a vulnerability to temptation. When you're physically tired, your body sends signals, and you want to sleep. But emotional depletion is harder to detec...

God worked six days creating the world, and on the seventh, He stopped. Not because He was exhausted. God doesn't get tired. He stopped to enjoy what He had made. And if God rested even though He didn't need to, it tells us there is more value in rest than just recovering from physical exertion. Moses says in Exodus 31 that God was refreshed. The literal translation suggests He refreshed...

We laugh about being too busy, like it makes us important. We brag about not having a day off in three weeks. We cram our vacations so full that we come home needing to rest. And somewhere along the way, we started believing that the busier we are, the more honorable we are. But God knew from the very beginning that we couldn't run on all eight cylinders seven days a week and still be product...

Most of us have an owner's manual tucked somewhere in the glove compartment. It tells us when to change the oil, rotate the tires, and run the inspections that keep the vehicle running well over the long haul. We follow it because we know what happens when we don't. Here's the thing: the Bible is God's owner's manual for His creation. And the fourth commandment is essentia...

Paul writes in Ephesians 5 to make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. He's not just talking about productivity. He's saying the battle for your time is a battle for your heart and soul. Every moment is an opportunity, and once it passes it can never be repeated. There's a story of someone who crossed paths with a woman who had just found out her neighbor died a...

Jesus taught multitudes, had dinner with all kinds of people, talked with the poor, the blind, beggars, and tax collectors. And yet we never read that He rushed anywhere. What was His secret? He arose early and slipped away to a place of solitude to pray. Over and over again. Without that daily discipline, we live an unexamined life, busy but not reflective. Paul puts it bluntly in Ephesians 5: “W...

Most people trying to get a handle on their time will sit down, number their priorities one through six, put God first, family second, career third, and call it a plan. But a numbered list doesn't help you navigate the real trade-offs of a real day. Nobody walks up to you with your spouse in one hand and a business contract in the other asking you to choose. Life is full of smaller decisions...

Paul says in Ephesians 5 to be very careful how you live. That word careful implies thought, planning, and advanced decision-making. But most of us are falling into one of four traps that quietly steal our time without us noticing. Procrastination convinces us there's always tomorrow, until suddenly there isn't. Laziness shows up not just as inactivity but as great initiative with no fol...

Thirty years ago, social scientists predicted that technology would automate enough of life that we'd be searching for ways to fill our free time. Then came microwaves, dishwashers, cell phones, laptops, voicemail, and AI. And yet here we are, more pressed for time than ever. The apostle Paul had his own crushing demands, planting churches, writing letters, traveling, being imprisoned, and in...

Naomi came home empty, asked to be called bitter, and couldn't see past her loss. But God was writing something she couldn't have imagined. Ruth married Boaz, had a son named Obed, who had a son named Jesse, who had a son named David. And if you trace that line forward, you eventually arrive in Bethlehem, and the Christmas story, and Jesus. Boaz was a picture of what the Bible calls a gu...

Ruth went out to find a field to work in. As it turned out, she ended up in the field of a wealthy relative named Boaz, who went out of his way to protect her, provide for her, and eventually redeem everything she and Naomi had lost. Just so happened. What a coincidence. In the Bible, whenever you read language like that, pay attention, because God is usually up to something. Boaz was under no leg...

Naomi left Bethlehem full and came back empty. Her husband was gone. Both sons were gone. And when people who knew her tried to greet her by name, she stopped them. Don't call me Naomi. Call me Mara. Bitter. Because that's what she was. She felt like God hadn't held up His end of the deal. Maybe that sounds familiar. Maybe what you hoped for, what you felt like God was going to deli...

Deborah was a woman leading in a man's world. Gideon was a farmer from the lowest tribe who went into battle with 300 men against 135,000. Samson was the strongest man alive, but he couldn't resist the wrong woman. Remarkable, flawed, and wildly unlikely. And yet God used every one of them. The thread running through all three stories is the same: God doesn't need your credentials,...