Pursuing God with Dave and Gene

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, your confidence, or your perfect track record. He needs someone who will turn to Him and trust Him even when the odds don't make sense. That's it. So where are you playing it too safe today? Where are you waiting until you feel more ready or more qualified? 

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.

After Joshua's generation passed, something went wrong. The next generation grew up without the story. They didn't know what God had done, and within one generation, Israel was back in idolatry and bondage. That cycle repeated itself 13 times over 330 years, and only 110 of those years were lived in peace with God. Sin, slavery, repentance, rescue, repeat. Like Groundhog Day. And here's what makes it so heartbreaking: God kept showing up. He kept raising up leaders. He kept delivering His people. But the cycle couldn't be broken from the inside. It took someone from outside it entirely, sinless and unstained, to finally end it for good. That's Jesus walking into Jerusalem on a donkey, knowing exactly what week it was. So before you go into your day, ask yourself honestly: Is there an area of your life where you keep returning to the same patterns?

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 enemy has five words too. "You'll never be good enough." "Your gift is not needed." "You'll always be that woman." Simple, devastating sentences that people carry for years, sometimes decades, that strip the strength right out of their stories. But God has five words of His own. He said them to Joshua before the most impossible assignment of his life. Jesus said them to His disciples before He ascended. They were the last words He wanted lingering in the air after He was gone. And they are just as true for you today: I will be with you. Not good luck, you've got what it takes. Not figure it out and report back. I will be with you. Whatever wall is still standing, whatever fear is still present, whatever you're walking into next week, that promise hasn't changed.

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 first generation of Israelites stood at the edge of the Promised Land, looked at the giants, looked at themselves, and decided the math didn't work. They all died in the wilderness. Joshua's generation wasn't stronger. The walls weren't shorter. What changed was their focus. They stopped looking at who they were and started looking at who God is. Isaiah asks it this way: Who holds the oceans in the hollow of His hand? More than two-thirds of the earth's surface, in some places seven miles deep, and God holds it like a splash. That's who goes before you into whatever you're facing. So the question is never "am I big enough for this?" The question is "how big is my God?" The wall doesn't get smaller. But when you fix your eyes on who God actually is, it starts to look a lot different by comparison.

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.

Before a single step was taken around Jericho, God told Joshua something remarkable. Not "I will deliver Jericho." He said "I have delivered Jericho." Past tense. The walls were still standing, the army was still inside, and God was already speaking of it as done. That is who God is. He sees the end from the beginning and He is not stressed about your situation even when you are. The battle plan made no human sense: march, blow a trumpet, say nothing. And yet on day seven, the walls didn't just breach, they collapsed. So completely that the only explanation left was God. So what wall are you circling right now? What are you doing in obedience day after day that isn't producing visible results yet? Don't stop. Don't give up before day seven.

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.

Rahab was a prostitute living inside the walls of Jericho. And when Joshua needed his city taken down, God's first move was to use her. She hid the spies, misdirected the soldiers, and made a way where there was no way. But her story doesn't end there. In the New Testament she's listed in the Hall of Faith alongside Abraham, Moses, and Joshua. And in Matthew chapter 1, she shows up in the genealogy of Jesus. It doesn't matter what the first chapter of your story looks like. God can end it in a way that has nothing to do with how it began. So think about someone you've written off today, yourself included. Someone whose past seems to disqualify them. Because God has a long history of choosing exactly those people for exactly the moments that matter most.

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.

After the death of Moses. Don't blow past those five words. For forty years he had been their leader, their anchor, the one who stood before Pharaoh, parted the Red Sea, and brought water from a rock. And now he was gone, and Israel was standing at the edge of the Promised Land without him. Joshua had to step into those shoes with no roadmap and no guarantee, just a God who said move forward. And he did. That's the thing about courage. It isn't the absence of fear. It's taking one step forward in spite of it. So think about the fear that's most present in your life right now. The real kind. The one that sits in the back of your mind all day or wakes you up at 3 a.m. What would it look like to take just one step forward today?

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.

An eleven-day trip became forty years. And yet the pillar of cloud never disappeared. The manna never stopped. The sandals never wore out.  Here's what the desert was actually doing: separating a people from the only culture they had ever known, slowly and patiently forming them into a people who could be trusted with what came next.  God is never in a hurry. And the waiting is always doing something. So wherever you are today, here is what's true: God has not lost track of 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.

Forty years passed, and almost nothing changed. A brand new generation, the same complaints, word for word. That's what repetitive sin patterns do. They don't just affect you; they get handed down through families, communities, and generations if they're never interrupted. And here's the hard truth: you can spend forty years in the wilderness and come out the other side doing exactly what you went in doing if the heart hasn't actually been transformed. Time and good intentions aren't enough. What's the record you keep playing that's keeping you stuck? 

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.

Israel was genuinely close to the Promised Land. The spies came back with an incredible report: a fertile land, oversized grapes, and everything God had promised. But ten of the twelve couldn't get past the giants, and fear started doing what fear always does. It exaggerated the obstacle, minimized what God had already done, and called it a realistic assessment. However, Caleb and Joshua saw the same giants and came to a completely different conclusion, not because they had better information, but because they had a bigger God. Is there something God has been leading you toward that fear is keeping you from stepping into?

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.