Category: Links

Links for the Weekend (2025-07-04)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

Where to Find Your Happy Place

How do we explain joys that serve no specific function? Andrew Wilson offers an explanation centered in the presence of God.

In the same way, joy in this world is located wherever God is present, in Christ by his Spirit, rather than wherever painful things are absent. It could be in a Galilean boat battered by the waves; it could be in the sorrow and confusion of an upper-room farewell, in the injustice of a Jerusalem kangaroo court, in the stocks of a Philippian jail; it could be in the isolation of exile on the island of Patmos. As sad as the circumstances may be, if God is present then delight is available. Joy is found through presence, not just absence. Happiness is more about the presence of Christ than the absence of crisis.

Did God Forgive Me If I Don’t Feel Forgiven?

John Piper tackles two related questions in this episode of the Ask Pastor John podcast (the transcript is available). Can someone who turns away from Christ return and be forgiven? Also, what should we do if we struggle to feel forgiven?

Dear friend, rehearse the mercies of God over and over. Never take your eyes off of Christ crucified, because Romans 5:8 tells us that’s where God spoke most loudly about his love: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” That’s where he puts it on display. So, don’t take your eyes off the love of God in Christ crucified.

En Pointe

Our poem of the week: En Pointe, by Lesley Clinton. This poem celebrates dance and the transcendence of art.

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 (2025-06-27)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

Honoring God With Your Body: More Than a Health Goal

Staci Eastin helps us think about caring for our bodies in a way that glorifies God.

Our bodies are not projects to perfect, but gifts to steward. The way we eat, rest, and move isn’t just physical—it’s spiritual. As Paul reminds is in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and we should honor God with them. Our bodies are the means by which we carry out the acts of service he has called us to. Our bodies allow us to enjoy the good gifts he gives us.

The Freedom of Being Seen by Christ

Alan Noble takes us to the Samaritan woman in John 4 to discuss the freedom that is found in being known completely by Jesus.

But like the Samaritan woman, we are free to be seen by Christ and unburden ourselves before him because he has already seen all that we have ever done and all that has ever been done to us and he loves us. He desires us to repent and mature in holiness. We never have to be ashamed or afraid of bringing our problems before him. We stand revealed before an all-knowing God who has also died for us because he first loved us. Perfect love and perfect knowing meet in Christ. And so the desire to be known and the fear of being known no longer need to be held in tension for the Christian. It’s resolved in the deity of Christ.

Sunburn

Our poem of the week: Sunburn, by Ange Mlinko. This is a short poem about sunburn and the longing for snow.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called A Guaranteed Way to Grow in Biblical 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 (2025-06-20)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

Know Your (Teenage) Child’s Frame

Cara Ray wrote a helpful article about loving the teenagers in our families (and our churches!).

The changing teenage frame can be as mysterious as it is wonderful. As parents, we sometimes have mixed feelings about entering this season, which can be marked by tension and the tendency to pull away from one another. Knowing our teenagers’ frame and how God kindly remembers ours helps us move toward them as fellow strugglers and sufferers with compassion and grace. We don’t always know how to respond to our teens, but with God as our perfect Father and model, we can rest confident that everything will ultimately be “just fine.”

You Need Context When Reading the Bible

Here is an article explaining the different contexts that matter when reading the Bible. All are important!

Unfortunately, when we come to the Bible, we all too often do something very similar to what your friend did with your words: we take verses and passages from Scripture and rip them out of their proper context. Sadly, I believe that people tend to do this with the Bible even more than with other books that they read. Many times, people do this with good intentions. They are seeking to find a word of encouragement for their day, an inspiring quote for a friend, or a devotional thought to share with a small group, sports team, or business gathering. They read quickly, find a verse or verses that seem to work, and grab them and go, only to discover later that they wrongly interpreted verses by missing their broader context. Despite their good intentions, such disregard for context can often result in the abuse—and misuse—of the word of God.

Merry Mind

Our poem of the week: Merry Mind, by Sherry Poff. This poem, part of The Clayjar Review’s issue on mirth, asks the reader to think about what the mind of God must be like to have made some of the wonderful (and absurd) things on earth.

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 (2025-06-13)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

How Do I Leave My Sin at the Foot of the Cross?

Katie Laitkep offers some advice related to this common Christian expression: leaving your sin at the cross.

You must continue to rely on Jesus for everything—day by day, moment by moment. This is the part we often get wrong. We start out at the cross, knowing we’re in need of God’s mercy, but then we begin to drift––trying to manage, fix, or perfect ourselves apart from the grace that saved us. We proclaim the first part of Galatians 2:20 with our lips: “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” But if our lives told the story, they might read more like this: “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God controlling everything myself.”

Taking a Closer Look at Psalm 22

Daniel Stevens offers a helpful overview of Psalm 22 and then looks at the way the author of Hebrews quotes this psalm. (There is a video accompanying this article.)

And even for apologetic purposes, Psalm 22 often gets used because here, in this psalm of David, we do seem to have a description of Jesus’s death at the crucifixion—that his joints are stretched out, his heart melts away like wax, and we even find within it people dividing his garments and casting lots (Ps. 22:18). So Psalm 22 does meet us with the crucifixion scene. It is a prophecy, even as it is a psalm, telling us of how Jesus was to die. And Jesus wanted us to see it that way.

Battling Negative Body Image

Many Christians—indeed many humans—struggle with negative body image. However, Christians have tools to combat such negative messages.

The trouble is that a negative body image rarely remains contained to occasional frustration—it quickly grows to impact how we function. Adverse thoughts about how our bodies look often spur negative feelings about ourselves—about our value, our ability to contribute to society, and even our perception of our worth to others. To make things worse, those feelings may even lead to bodily harm as a way to cope with difficult emotions or to force our bodies to measure up to the desired ideal.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Joy: 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 (2025-06-06)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

Is There a Future for Church Grandpas and Grandmas?

Trevin Wax reflects on his family history of Bible readers and wants to cast a vision for creating future church grandmas and grandpas.

The beautiful truth about church grandparents is that anyone can become a super-reader of the Bible. You don’t need a degree. My grandparents weren’t part of the “knowledge class.” Some went to college; others didn’t. Some read widely; others were content with Reader’s Digest or the latest from John Grisham. I probably won’t be discussing Dostoevsky’s The Idiot or Kierkegaard’s existentialism with my grandmothers anytime soon. But we sure can talk about the Gospels. They know the stories of Jesus backward and forward. They’ve immersed themselves in the Psalms. They explore the Epistles as regularly and perhaps more reverently than most New Testament scholars. The Bible is life to them.

How do I encourage and help my child who is shy and anxious in social situations?

Here’s a helpful video from a CCEF counselor about how to help children who are shy and anxious. (There is a video with a transcript at this link.)

So preparing ahead of time is going to be essential. And how do you prepare? What do you do? Well, it’s helpful to encourage your son or daughter to put into words both what scares them in these settings and what they want to have happen, what they want to do in that particular setting that they’re going into. And when you start to talk to your son or daughter about what’s going on inside, what they’re fearing, what scares them, and what they’re looking forward to, well, you’ll see essentially two things, both fears and then desires.

Where Two Are Gathered

Our poem of the week: Where Two Are Gathered, by Coby Dolloff. This poem reflects on the presence of the Holy Spirit when Christians gather together.

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 (2025-05-30)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

Four Good Questions To Ask Your Tech

The last of these four questions, posed by Tim Challies, is especially important: What are you doing to my heart? These are important questions to ask of our technology, and I fear we think about such things too infrequently.

The wise consumer of technology will realize that the technology he uses today, the technology he has come to love and depend on, will have unintended consequences in his life and in the world around him. He will look not just to the technology itself but to the function for which it was created, the problem it was originally supposed to address.

Listening is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do

This writer thinks that intense listening to other people might be on the decline. He offers an exhortation to pay attention in our conversations.

The more you learn to listen and put this into practice, the more people will tell you. They will feel heard. You might have deeper conversations with your spouse or your parents or your kids. All it takes is some effort and the attitude to place others first.

A Sonnet for Ascension Day

Our poem of the week: A Sonnet for Ascension Day, by Malcolm Guite. I especially like the repetition of singing through this sonnet.

    On the WPCA Blog This Week

    This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Jesus Takes Office Through His Resurrection. 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 (2025-05-23)

    Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

    How do I find hope when I struggle with persistent sin?

    I appreciated the answer to this question by CCEF counselor Lauren Whitman. She talks about the struggle against sin and points us to hope in God’s mercy. (This link is to a video, and there is a transcript on the page as well.)

    So where sin is persistent, our Jesus is more so. When sin is persistent, Jesus’s love will not stop. He will persist in remaking you. He will prove to be doggedly more persistent than your sin. He is the most persistent person in the universe and he will have his way with you, and his ways are good, they’re for your good, and he will prevail over your sin. So every day, look to the one who has loved you and loves you with a persistent love. He is not giving up on you, and he never will. 

    How to Support the Caregivers in Your Church

    If you’ve never been a caregiver for someone who needs long-term help, you might not know the best way to support such a person. I’m glad that Simonetta Carr wrote this post to highlight some of the most needed areas.

    The best thing to do is to be present as faithful friends, ready to stick around, listen, and learn. Getting involved in the lives of caregivers and their loved ones may seem like a sacrifice, but it’s well worth it for everyone involved. If we are convinced that “the body does not consist of one member but of many” (1 Cor. 12:14), and each is necessary for the building up of the church, we will treat each other as such and—in the process—grow in maturity, love, and wisdom.

    The Windows

    Our poem of the week: The Windows, by George Herbert. This poem, written by a Christian poet in the 1600s, is about how our words must be combined with our life to point to God’s grace.

    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 (2025-05-16)

    Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

    Why Does God Make Us Wait for Good Things?

    Mark Vroegop says this is a fair question with uncertain answers. He helps us refocus, from wondering about why to looking at who. Waiting is for our good. (There is a video at this link as well as a transcript, so you can watch/listen or read, according to your preference.)

    Waiting is part of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. It’s part of what it means to trust that God knows what he’s doing. And so when you’re waiting for something good and it’s not coming, the hope and the comfort that the Bible offers to us, like from Psalm 27, is that our hearts can take courage as we wait on the Lord.

    The One Virtue Every Young Man Needs

    Trevin Wax writes about self-control, and he frames this virtue in terms of sanctification instead of stoicism.

    The gospel takes the ancient virtue of self-control and transposes it into a new key. It’s not first and foremost about you. It’s about God. It’s self-control in service of love. Love depends on self-control, yes, but love also deepens self-control. Love turns self-control upward and outward, toward God and toward others. It’s not about independence of self but dependence on God. It’s not about self-mastery; it’s about Spirit-mastery. It’s not about controlling yourself for your own sake; it’s about being controlled by Christ for the sake of others. It’s yielding to the One who loves you with an everlasting love and who wants now to love others through you.

    Two Poems

    I’m sharing two poems this week, both courtesy of the Rabbit Room Poetry Substack.

    • Mary and Eve, by Michael Stalcup — This poem is inspired by the illustration from Sister Grace Remington which imagines a meeting between Eve and a pregnant Mary.
    • Tell No One, by Elizabeth Wickland — This poem describes some of the wonders of spring and insists that they must be experienced (not just heard about) to be truly enjoyed.

    On the WPCA Blog This Week

    This week on the blog we published an article written by Maggie Amaismeier called Books and Podcasts, May 2025. 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 (2025-05-09)

    Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

    Listening Might Be the Best Evangelism Tool You’re Not Using

    When we fail to listen to our unbelieving friends, we end up giving answers to questions they’re not asking.

    However, if we don’t also listen, we tend to share the good news of Jesus in a way that applies primarily to our lives, the way it was good news to us, but fails to address the situations others are facing. We can become proclaimers of the good news while remaining ignorant of the ways in which others need to hear it. This doesn’t negate how good the news of Jesus is at all. However, if we read the rest of the story of Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan woman, we find that while her testimony created intrigue, the people in the village had to meet Jesus for themselves. It wasn’t enough for her just to share her story. They had to get to Jesus as well.

    3 Truths Your Daughter Needs to Hear About Beauty

    Kristen Wetherell’s article offers good counsel to parents, helping them teach young women a biblical view of beauty.

    What might change if we emphasized the eternal in our most basic conversations, especially within the family of Christ? What if, instead of commenting on another female’s appearance, we simply said, “It’s wonderful to see you! Tell me how you’re doing today”? Our littlest girls would feel warmly welcomed not because they’re wearing pink but because they’re a valuable part of God’s precious body.

    Mirth

    The latest issue of Clayjar Review is on the theme of mirth. Here are two poems from this issue I have read and enjoyed.

    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 (2025-05-02)

    Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

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

    The Ever-Present Search for an Easy Christian Faith

    Does anything about the Christian faith make you uncomfortable? Trevin Wax proposes that should probably be true in some area of your life.

    We should test ourselves. Do we pledge our allegiance to God as he truly is, or do we settle for fashioning a god of our own imagination? Are we shaving off the rough edges of his revelation to suit our preferences? Or are we willing to submit to what he says about himself—even when we don’t understand (or don’t want to)?

    The Problem With Habits (and Why We Still Need Them)

    Darryl Dash has a good perspective on habits (and a good analogy for them too). He writes: “habits alone cannot transform us, yet we cannot grow without them.”

    God has established means of grace. They’re ways through which he promises to work in our lives. When we seek him through Scripture, our hearts are changed. The transformative power lies not in our routine of Bible reading, but in the living word itself. God’s Spirit actively works through his word. God’s word has the power to change our lives (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The same applies to prayer. God promises that those who seek him will find him (Matthew 7:7-8). The power isn’t in habits; habits just get us to God’s means of grace.

    In Waiting

    Our poem of the week: In Waiting, by Joshua Fullman. This is a poem about visiting a loved one in the hospital.

    On the WPCA Blog This Week

    This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called 3 Essential Ingredients for Understanding 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.