Pursuing God with Dave and Gene

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 his dishonesty had made him miserable and filled his days with frustration. Most of us have surrounded ourselves with mirrors that only show our best angle. And we've been walking out the door for years with something on our face that everyone else can see and nobody will say. So ask yourself honestly: have you been living in a straitjacket and calling it fine?

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.

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 you that you cannot get loose from. The gap between how you appear and how you actually feel is its own kind of exhaustion. Honesty is the beginning of everything. Name the thing.

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.

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 to unlearn. You hand them something different. Something better. So do you want to get well? Because one move this week in your most important relationship could be the beginning of something you haven't seen in a long time.

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.

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 one relationship where you could put it into practice this week.

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.

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 can't manufacture it on your own. But here's the good news: you don't have to. When you're reconciled to God through Jesus, His Spirit goes to work on the inside, creating a genuine desire not just to be at peace with God but to be at peace with others. So if your relationships are worn down and you're exhausted from trying to hold them together in your own strength, start here.

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.

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 until everyone forgets what the fight was about. And the Manhandler, where physical force or intimidation takes over when the pressure gets too high. Here's what all four have in common: they're rooted in self. They protect, express, numb, or dominate. None of them make space for the other person. None of them move toward reconciliation. So which one do you default to? Awareness is the first step toward change.

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.

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. But God isn't patching you up. He's restoring the original. And when that restoration begins in you, you start seeing the people around you differently. Not as the damage they've caused, but as people God is also trying to restore. So here's the honest question: what emergency procedures do you actually have in place for when conflict shows up?

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.

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 rhythm of rest and worship built right into the design of human life. It's like a tune-up, an oil change, a full tank, every seven days. The wagon trains that mocked the Harrison family for stopping to rest on Sundays didn't arrive first. The Harrisons did, and their animals were in far better condition when they got there. Stopping isn't falling behind. It's how you stay in it for the long haul.

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.

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 detect and harder to admit. Dallas Willard pointed out that Jesus was busy but never in a hurry. He took strategic breaks, slipped away to the mountains, and leaned into the rhythm of rest. Dallas's prescription for spiritual growth was simple: ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life. Hurry is the enemy of peace, love, joy, and passion. So, when was the last time you truly rested? Not caught up. Not powered through. Actually rested.

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.

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 Himself. And we are called to imitate that. Here's what trips most of us up, though: we treat rest like a reward for finishing everything on the list. But it's a command, not a prize for productivity. The universe keeps spinning even if you stop. You are not essential, just significant. And there is real freedom in knowing the difference. So is there a day in your week you can genuinely call a rest day, not a catch-up day, not an errand day, but a day of actual renewal?

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.