Pursuing God with Dave and Gene

Flocks don't disappear all at once. One sheep wanders. Another gets sick. The pasture gets overgrazed. And if the shepherd isn't paying attention, he looks up one day, and the herd is half what it used to be, with no single moment he can point to when it went wrong. That is exactly how financial erosion works. It's rarely one catastrophic decision. It's the slow bleed of unexamined spending and the quiet assumption that things are probably okay. Proverbs says know the condition of your flocks. Know your income. Know your real expenses. Know your debts. Because a lack of planning isn't bad luck. It's a decision. When we fail to plan, we are essentially deciding to be surprised. And being surprised financially is expensive. So here's the honest question: do you actually know what you have?

Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community, and unleash compassion. Grounded in Scripture and shaped by Eastside’s conviction that God’s grace is for everyone, each episode invites you to discover God’s presence and activity in your life.

In 1923, some of the wealthiest men in the world gathered in a Chicago hotel, collectively controlling more than the entire US Treasury. Twenty-seven years later, two had died penniless, two had been imprisoned, and three had taken their own lives. They knew how to make money. None of them ever had enough to make them happy. That tells us the question "why don't I have enough?" goes much deeper than "I don't make enough." Jesus said to be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves. Shrewdness is clear-eyed, intentional thinking about money. Innocence is the guardrail that keeps shrewdness from becoming greed. Together they produce the kind of financial faithfulness Jesus was pointing toward. So before anything else, here's the honest question: do you actually know where your money is going?

Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community, and unleash compassion. Grounded in Scripture and shaped by Eastside’s conviction that God’s grace is for everyone, each episode invites you to discover God’s presence and activity in your life.

Romans 8:28 says God works all things together for good for those who have been called according to His purpose. We reach for the comfort of that first part and skip past the foundation of it. The calling isn't incidental to the promise. It's what makes the promise possible. You were foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified. Five links, no gaps. And your calling sits right in the middle of a plan that was already ancient before your first breath. There will be seasons when you can't feel it, when circumstances make it seem impossible, when you wonder if you misheard. But your calling is not contingent on your consistency. It is held in place by the faithfulness of the One who issued it. You may waver. The call does not. So what is one concrete step you will take this week in response to what God has been stirring in you?

Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community, and unleash compassion. Grounded in Scripture and shaped by Eastside’s conviction that God’s grace is for everyone, each episode invites you to discover God’s presence and activity in your life.

Moses had his doubts. Isaiah felt completely unworthy standing in the presence of God. Gideon couldn't believe the call was for him. And yet God used every one of them. Because the call was never a question of whether the project could be done. It was a question of whether their faith would let God do it through them. Doubts and hesitation are normal. But too often they become a smoke screen. We don't want to say no to God, but the uncertainty keeps us from saying yes. Here's what Isaiah discovered though: when he laid his doubts before the Lord, God did the cleansing. He doesn't need you to be perfect. He needs you to be willing. Commitment costs something. But what it costs is always less than what it returns.

Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community, and unleash compassion. Grounded in Scripture and shaped by Eastside’s conviction that God’s grace is for everyone, each episode invites you to discover God’s presence and activity in your life.

Gideon couldn't believe the call was for him. His tribe was the weakest. He was the least in his family. And God didn't argue with any of that. He didn't say you're wrong, you're actually quite capable. He simply said I will be with you. The issue was never Gideon's résumé. It was God's presence. That is the consistent logic of calling throughout Scripture. He doesn't call the equipped. He equips the called. And the equipment He provides is Himself. Most of us quietly assume the call is for somebody else, our neighbor, our Sunday school teacher, the more qualified person in the room. But the need you keep noticing might be coming to your attention for a reason. The call is not asking you to be ready. It's asking you to be willing.

Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community, and unleash compassion. Grounded in Scripture and shaped by Eastside’s conviction that God’s grace is for everyone, each episode invites you to discover God’s presence and activity in your life.

Elijah had just called down fire from heaven. And then he collapsed under a broom tree and told God he had nothing left. God's response wasn't a rebuke. He let him sleep, sent an angel to feed him, and said the journey is too much for you. And when God finally spoke, it wasn't in the earthquake or the fire. It was in the still small voice. The wilderness stripped away the noise. The exhaustion stripped away self-sufficiency. God had to get Elijah quiet before He could get Elijah moving again. That pattern hasn't changed. The people most ready to hear God's call are rarely the ones standing on the mountain in triumph. They're often the ones sitting in the dust, depleted, wondering if any of it matters. So here's the honest question: have you put yourself in a position where you can actually hear Him?

Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community, and unleash compassion. Grounded in Scripture and shaped by Eastside’s conviction that God’s grace is for everyone, each episode invites you to discover God’s presence and activity in your life.

Ephesians 2:10 says we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which He prepared in advance for us to do. That word handiwork in the original Greek is poiema, the root of our word poem. A masterpiece. You are not an accident. You are not a rough draft. Built into the very design of who you are is a purpose God prepared before you ever took your first breath. So if you've been feeling that restlessness, that sense that there's something more you're supposed to be doing, don't dismiss it. That may be your original design waking up. God's call isn't just for young people figuring out their next step. It's for parents, retirees, single adults, and everyone in between who senses that God isn't finished with them yet. The question was never whether He has something for you. The question is whether you're paying attention.

Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community, and unleash compassion. Grounded in Scripture and shaped by Eastside’s conviction that God’s grace is for everyone, each episode invites you to discover God’s presence and activity in your life.

On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up and quoted the prophet Joel: in the last days God will pour out His Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Of all the texts he could have chosen, he chose that one. And when the Holy Spirit came, women were in that room and filled with the Spirit alongside the men. The early church gave roles based on gifts, not gender. Priscilla taught men at a seminary level. Lydia launched the first church in Philippi. The four daughters of Philip preached and prophesied. Sin had disrupted what God originally designed. But Jesus came to restore it. Galatians 3 puts it plainly: there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. So women, God knit you together with gifts and talents this world and this church desperately need. Be all who God made you to be.

Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community, and unleash compassion. Grounded in Scripture and shaped by Eastside’s conviction that God’s grace is for everyone, each episode invites you to discover God’s presence and activity in your life.

Some men carry an arrogance about women that is simply wrong. Others leave all the spiritual work to the women in their lives and call it fine. And many women have spent years carrying false messages that labeled them small, insignificant, and second-class. None of it lines up with Jesus. He was the most powerful man who ever lived, and he used that power to lift women up, not hold them down. That's the standard. So here's a word for the men: treat your female colleagues, your wife, your daughters, the way Jesus treated women. Spiritual work is men's work too. And here's a word for the women: you don't need to shrink. God made you, gifted you, and loves you. He wants you to be a dangerous tool for good in this world. Don't buy the lie that says otherwise. Be who God made you to be.

Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community, and unleash compassion. Grounded in Scripture and shaped by Eastside’s conviction that God’s grace is for everyone, each episode invites you to discover God’s presence and activity in your life.

Rabbis in Jesus' day taught that it was better to burn the Torah than teach it to a woman. Jewish men prayed, thanking God they hadn't been made a Gentile, a slave, or a woman. A devout rabbi wouldn't even speak to a woman in public. And into that world steps Jesus. He speaks with a Samaritan woman at a well. He travels with women. He counts them among his closest friends. And then at the single most important moment in all of human history, when the greatest announcement ever made needed a messenger, he chose women. In a culture where women couldn't even serve as witnesses in a legal proceeding, Jesus trusted them to be the first eyewitnesses of the resurrection and the first to carry the news that he was alive. As Dorothy Sayers wrote, it is no wonder women were first at the cradle and last at the cross. They had never known a man like this.

Pursuing God with Gene Appel is designed to help you pursue God, build community, and unleash compassion. Grounded in Scripture and shaped by Eastside’s conviction that God’s grace is for everyone, each episode invites you to discover God’s presence and activity in your life.