Category: Links

Links for the Weekend (2025-04-04)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Combat Anxiety Through Surrender

I appreciated this reminder from Tim Challies about what the Bible calls us to when we’re anxious and feeling out of control: surrendering ourselves to God.

One of the lessons I have learned through life’s greatest difficulties is there is far more comfort in surrender than control. The reason is obvious: Surrender is within our power while control is not. We have the ability to surrender ourselves to God and his purposes, but we do not have the ability to control God and his purposes.

It’s Never Too Late to Learn How to Pray

This post draws instruction from the way that Tim Keller didn’t really learn to pray until in his 50s.

The applicational impact of Jesus’s example is hard to miss. If Jesus needed to pray under these circumstances, how much more do I? And yet, after twenty-three years as a Christian and nearly twelve as a pastor, I must admit that I’m still learning to pray. Judging by my conversations with other Christians, I’m not alone in that sentiment. Prayer is perhaps the most challenging component of the Christian life, and the distractions of our digital age only compound the difficulty.

Lenten Sonnet XX

Our poem of the week: Lenten Sonnet XX, by Andrew Peterson. This reflection on 1 John 1:5 is a poem about light.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Don’t Drift Away From the Bible. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-03-28)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

The Paradox of Ease: Why Friction is Good for You

Trevin Wax explains how convenience and getting all we need with ease is not necessarily good for us. And it doesn’t make us happier. He adds reflections on the Christian life coming out of this truth.

What would life be like if we could eliminate all friction? If we could do away with resistance? If fulfilling our desires were as simple as pressing a button, so the gap between what we want and what we experience shrinks to nothing?

“This is the aspiration of the digital,” Barba-Kay argues. It’s “to make the world fully pliant to [our] will.” The goal is to reduce the resistance between desire and fulfillment. And in theory, this should make us happier. If we could eliminate struggle, wouldn’t joy be easier to come by?

It hasn’t worked out that way.

On Failure

To be human is, sadly, to know failure. Alan Noble examines worldly grief and godly grief in the context of failure.

My favorite part of this verse is the phrase “without regret,” because to me this is the whole key to understanding how to avoid worldly grief. Godly grief has a trademark: it doesn’t come with regret. There’s no obsessing over the failure or going over the details again and again to try and fix things in your mind. Godly grief accepts that Christ has forgiven us and that is more than enough. And so we are free to live.

Lenten Sonnets

Andrew Peterson is writing sonnets through Lent this year, so I’m sharing two of them for the poetry section of the links this week: Lenten Sonnet X, 2025 and Lenten Sonnet XVII, 2025.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-03-21)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

The Best Source of Stability on an Emotional Roller Coaster

Lois Flowers encourages us to cling to the anchor of God’s character when we’re in life’s storms.

What is true about God doesn’t change according to our circumstances. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. As believers, our names are engraved on the palm of His hand. He loves us with an everlasting love. He goes before us and is with us. He will never leave us nor forsake us.

These are truths, not clichés. They are not metaphorically hidden in the pages of scripture. They are spelled out clearly and plainly.

Even though we may sometimes think otherwise, God’s love does not cease to apply to us when something in our lives goes wrong. We are not the exception to His promises, His truth or His sovereignty. When trials come, as He explicitly promised they would, His character does not bypass us or our loved ones.

In Sanctification, Where You’re Going Is More Important Than Where You Are

Kevin DeYoung wrote some helpful words for us on how we progress in holiness.

Which brings us to one of the most important axioms about holiness: when it comes to sanctification, it’s more important where you’re going than where you are. Direction matters more than position. Your future progress speaks louder than your present placement. So cheer up: if you aren’t as holy as you want to be now, God may still be pleased with you because you are heading in the right direction. And be warned: if you aren’t as holy as you used to be, God probably isn’t impressed with yesterday’s triumphs when for the last few months you’ve done nothing but give up.

March Sonnet

Our poem of the week: March Sonnet by Chelsea Fraser. This is a poem about the arrival of spring (with a hint of resurrection thrown in too).

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Reading the Bible for the First Time. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-03-14)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Life Will Not Get Easier

Stephen Witmer uses the book of Nehemiah to puncture the lie that life will just get easier if we can get past the current challenge. He shows how this story offers help for our current seasons of life, not just the future.

You’ve probably seen medication commercials featuring ridiculously fit and happy older people with silver hair and perfect teeth playing tennis and laughing in a carefree fashion. That’s the lie. It’s not true. In many years of pastoral ministry, I’ve seen numerous people work hard and honor God through their childrearing years and careers only to retire and face increased challenges. Friends move away. Misunderstandings with grown children occur. Spouses die. Medications multiply. Often, retirement isn’t a quiet harbor but the open ocean.

How to Be Confident in the Resurrection: Look to Its First Witnesses

With Easter happening next month, it’s not too early to think about the resurrection of Jesus. This is the center of the Christian faith, and one of the best arguments for the resurrection is the testimony of those early witnesses.

How can anyone be confident that the resurrection really happened? The first followers of Jesus didn’t claim their leader rose from the dead because of gullible ignorance or blind faith. They knew dead people stay dead. Especially after they began to be persecuted, they had nothing to gain by persisting in their claim that Jesus had returned to life.

Yet some of these women and men had encountered an event so momentous they were ready to die rather than deny they saw a once-dead man alive. These initial eyewitnesses declared what they experienced, and in some cases they died for what they declared. At least a few of their firsthand testimonies eventually found their way into the New Testament.

dalliance

Our poem of the week: dalliance, by Chris Wheeler. This short poem is about a morning commute and the ways we pass by one another.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-03-07)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Keep Reading Your Bible, Even If You Don’t Understand It

Erik Lundeen offers some advice for making Bible reading a regular part of life.

We must remember the interpretive spiral: The parts of Scripture help us to understand the whole, and the whole helps us to understand the parts. Evangelical culture rightly values Bible study, but I suspect we need to value Bible reading more. We should allow proper space for uninterrupted, extensive reading.

Advice for Reading Romans After Decades of Experience

John Piper suggests five questions for readers to answer when they’re reading the book of Romans.

It’s not just the Mount Everest of Scripture, which it is. It is a whole range of mountain peaks of soaring revelation. If there’s any Scripture to which we should apply Psalm 119:18, this is it: “[O Lord,] open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your [instruction].” (That’s a good translation of torah, sometimes translated “law.”) So, with this sense of expectation and wonder and reverence and thankfulness for the greatest of all books, is there a peculiar angle from which we should come at this book as we read it this year?

Lament for Lynn

Our poem of the week: Lament for Lynn, by Kate Ravin. This is a poem about a woman losing her best friend to cancer.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called What We Miss When We Skip the Prophets. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Thanks to Phil A for his help in rounding up links this week!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-02-28)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

You Are a Burden

In this post, T. M. Suffield offers a great perspective. Perhaps we should stop apologizing for being a burden on others.

You are a burden. That’s good news. Why? Because it means you aren’t meant to do this on your own. You are meant to need a community around you. Humans are made for cities not smallholdings, even if we haven’t figured out how to make cities humane yet. We need each other.

The Indispensable Inefficiency of Prayer

We need to face the glorious truth that prayer is not at all efficient.

Prayer looks inefficient. There’s no getting around that. Spending time bringing our praise and thanks and needs to God feels like a delay. After an hour of prayer, you still won’t be able to tick any items off your list, or progress your agenda for the day. Then again, is your agenda really as good as the plans and promises of your Creator? Will a whole day—or a year, or a decade, or even a whole lifetime of effort and strain with your own little arms and mind and powers—be able to accomplish even a tiny fraction of what the Maker of heaven and earth can do with just one simple command?

Epistle to a Former Friend

Our poem of the week: Epistle to a Former Friend, by A.M. Juster. This short poem is about anger and unforgiveness.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-02-21)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Don’t Let Your Fears Hold Back Your Children

Melissa Edgington writes about trusting God in our parenting.

This is why we shouldn’t hold our kids back from going to far away colleges, from pursuing careers outside of the areas where we live, from following the callings that God has placed on their lives just because those callings make us scared. A big part of raising children is God teaching us to trust Him, and when it comes to experiences and adventures that are reasonably safe, we shouldn’t hold on so tightly that our kids aren’t allowed to see what reliance on God feels like. They won’t need to rely on Him if we keep them so bound to our own side that they never have to make a decision or figure something out without us.

Wikipedia Founder Embraces Christianity: Larry Sanger’s Testimony Highlights

It seems the founder of Wikipedia has become a Christian. Trevin Wax has read his testimony and points out a few features from which we can all learn.

Last week, Larry Sanger, the man who started Wikipedia in 2001, published a lengthy essay laying out his journey from skepticism to Christianity. For most of his adult life, Sanger was a committed skeptic, trained in analytic philosophy—a field dominated by atheists and agnostics. Though he spent 35 years as a nonbeliever, he never saw himself as hostile to faith, only unconvinced, and his testimony is geared toward those who share that rational, open-minded skepticism.

Not All Fear Is The Same

Here’s a link to an episode of the Ligonier Ministries podcast Renewing Your Mind entitled “Not All Fear Is The Same.” Michael Reeves speaks about the fear of the Lord on this podcast, and interested readers might want know that the following four episodes of this podcast feature Reeves diving deeper into this topic.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Ask Questions to Expose Idols. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-02-14)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Never Too Busy to Pray

What does it look like to prioritize prayer in our lives? Scott Hubbard points to Jesus for lessons.

The idea of prioritizing prayer sounds wonderful — until prioritizing prayer means not doing something we would very much like to do. We can talk about prioritizing prayer all we want, but we don’t truly do so unless we regularly set aside second-best priorities, some of them pressing, to get alone with God. The life of our Lord provides the best illustration.

To Those Living in Secret Sin

Esther Liu pleads with those living in secret sin, reminding them of the gospel and assuring them how much better it is to walk in the light.

Yet, I plead with you. I know what it can feel like to live in secrecy—the way it deadens your soul. And whether you are ready to face it or not, you are not truly doing well. You live a fractured life. As gratifying as your sin may be in the moment, when all is said and done, this life you are living doesn’t feel full. Imagine the joy of having a clear conscience, not because you are sinless, but because your lifestyle is one of honest confession and repentance. Imagine being able to have people in your life walk alongside you to support and encourage you in your struggles—you won’t have to face it all alone.

Club Escape

Our poem of the week: Club Escape, by Aaron Poochigian. This is a short poem which raises the question about where real satisfaction can be found.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-02-07)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Your Phone Habits Aren’t Just About You

Trevin Wax writes about our phone habits and the way they affect people around us.

You’ve likely seen this phenomenon elsewhere. If you’re on a hike with friends, enjoying conversation and the beauty around you, the moment someone pulls out a phone to capture the moment for social media, the dynamic shifts. The scenery is no longer just scenery—everything is potential for content or a possible background for a selfie. The hike is no longer only about you and your friends—it’s something to be broadcast, something open for evaluation and discussion online.

To (Almost) Die is Gain

Heidi Kellogg reflects on a scary surgery and how she was affected by the prospect of facing death.

Weeks after my craniotomy I received a call from the doctor’s office. A new patient was asking to speak with someone who had faced a similar diagnosis. I happily agreed to talk with her. She was close to my age and, like me, she had a husband and two young-adult sons. She asked me, “How do you prepare to die?” I couldn’t help but think it’s best to start long before you get a diagnosis like ours. Four days was not enough time for the most important preparations, but thankfully, I had been preparing for a long time.

Near Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Our poem of the week: Near Vanderbilt University Medical Center, by A.M. Juster. It’s a short, punchy poem about our finitude as humans.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Sorrow: An Engine of Christian Hope. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2025-01-31)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

If I Could Change Anything about the Modern Church

If Tim Challies could, he’d “return the graveyard to the churchyard.” He makes a compelling argument.

How would it change your worship if you were constantly confronted with the reality of death in this way yet also comforted by the proximity and the nearness of those who had gone before? How would it change your understanding of the church if the living and the dead maintained such a close distance? How would it change the way you prepare your heart to worship and prepare yourself to die? Speaking personally, I think it would be deeply moving and spiritually comforting. It would be a blessing to worship where my people are buried and to be buried where my people worship.

Enough with the Valorization of Doubt!

Trevin Wax laments the way many praise religious doubt as a virtue.

Of course, the life of faith isn’t easy. Thomas doubted the reality of the resurrection. A number of disciples doubted the truth even after they’d seen the risen Lord. Struggle is to be expected. That’s why Jude tells us to “have mercy on those who doubt.” Honesty about our doubt is a virtue, but it’s the honesty that’s commendable, not the doubt itself.

For The Church Podcast: Contentment

I appreciated this episode of the For the Church podcast on contentment. You might too! (Note: I do not see a transcription for this podcast episode.)

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here.