Pursuing God with Gene Appel

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.

Before sin entered the world and corrupted everything, God made something clear. He created human beings in His own image, male and female, blessed them both, and told them both to fill the earth and rule over creation together. Not the man over the woman. Both of them over creation. Co-regents. And that word helper used to describe the woman? It's used throughout the Old Testament to refer to God himself. Helper doesn't mean assistant. It means someone without whom you cannot do what you were made to do. The ruling of one man over one woman wasn't God's design. It was the result of the fall. Marriage was never meant to be a duo but a trio: God, husband, and wife, ruling over creation together as one. So how does knowing that men and women were made equally in the image of God, designed from the very beginning for a shared life and shared purpose, change the way you see yourself and the people around 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.

In some churches today, women still can't serve communion. In the church Gene grew up in, men made the financial and leadership decisions while women washed the baptism robes and decorated for Christmas. Many women, not just from the culture around them but from the church itself, have received the message over and over that they are small, insignificant, and second-class. That message is not from Jesus. Paul writes in Galatians 3 that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female. That is not a peripheral verse. It is a declaration at the very heart of the gospel. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. Any message that tells a woman she is less valuable, less capable, or less welcomed by God is not a gospel message. It is a contradiction of it. This week, we're looking honestly at what Jesus really said about women, and it might surprise 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.

When John Fawcett loaded his possessions onto a moving cart to leave the small congregation he had served for seven years, he began his goodbyes. And then it was too much. He unloaded the cart and stayed. He never left. He died there fifty-four years later and wrote a hymn that captured what he felt: Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love. Joined in heart, and the hope to meet again. That is the hope of Christian relationships. But here's the foundation underneath all of it: you can only build this kind of relationship if you are in Jesus. Without that, even the deepest bonds are still temporary. With it, every friendship formed in the body of Christ carries the promise of eternity. So take an honest look at your church community. Are you knowing people, loving them in action, and genuinely concerned for their well-being? Pick one relationship this weekend and decide to invest in it more deeply.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.

Jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive. Most of us would nod along quickly, but very few of us have actually built our lives around it. The word blessed here doesn't just mean happy. It means deeply satisfied, living in the fullness of what you were created for. The giver is the one living the richest life. Paul never stopped being concerned for the Ephesian elders, even while he was away. His concern wasn't just emotional. It showed up in his teaching, his warnings, his prayers, and ultimately his sacrifice. That's what genuine concern looks like. It builds something in a person that outlasts your presence. So think about someone in your life right now who might be feeling slow and low and stuck. Not just a passing thought or a prayer from a distance. What would real, active concern look like for that person 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.

Four donkeys shared a pasture but kept to their own corners, eyeing each other with suspicion. Then the weather turned foul. Cold, wind-driven rain with nowhere to shelter except with each other. By morning, all four were huddled together. In a crisis, mutual jealousy and strangeness were forgotten. We need that kind of breakthrough in the church, but we shouldn't need a crisis to get there. The Ephesian elders walked thirty miles just to see Paul one final time. He wept over them, prayed for them, and loved them deeply. That's love in action. And if our love isn't in action, it's worth asking whether it's really love at all. So think about someone in your church community toward whom your love has been more talk than action. A phone call. A text. Showing up. What would one concrete step look like 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.

Paul said to the Ephesian elders: "You know how I lived when I was with you." That statement only works if you've actually spent real time together. Over three years, they had come to know him as a servant, a teacher, an evangelist, and a sacrificer. And he knew them just as deeply. That kind of mutual knowledge is what made their farewell so emotionally raw. It's also what makes real community possible. But you'll never get there if your involvement is limited to darting in five minutes before church and heading straight for the car when the final song is over. Here's the challenge: stay fifteen extra minutes this weekend. Introduce yourself to someone you don't know. Get into a small group. Grab coffee with someone this week. Just one step. Because the eternal relationships God designed us for don't happen by accident.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 person sitting next to you at church this weekend is someone you'll be spending eternity with. That new believer who doesn't know anybody yet needs you to reach out. And that Christian you've had a sharp disagreement with, the one you've criticized behind their back, God is probably going to tell you to spend the next thousand years with them and work it out. The relationships we build in the body of Christ aren't just for a season. They're eternal. Paul's farewell to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 is one of the most emotionally raw moments in all of Scripture. Three years of deep ministry together, and now a final goodbye, he knew was permanent. That kind of bond doesn't happen by accident. So think of one person in your church community you've let distance grow with. Because if you're going to spend forever together, building something real now seems like a pretty good place to start.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.

Powerless is not a terrible place to end up. It's actually the beginning of something. The Bible teaches that by admitting weakness you access strength you never had before. Not your strength. God's. When you finally release your white-knuckled grip on the problem and say "I can't do this," that's when He can. Think about the person who spends three hours assembling furniture before looking at the instructions. The pile of mysterious leftover hardware grows, and the bookshelf leans slightly to the left. The moment the instructions come out is the moment actual progress begins. Not because they're magic, but because the admission that you needed them was the thing blocking everything else. The cycles that have repeated themselves in your life can change. But only when you stop trying to be your own solution.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 road to recovery always starts with the same admission: I am powerless. That's not a defeat statement. It's the most liberating sentence you may ever say. Here's what makes it so hard though: we settle the biggest question of existence with God and then spend the rest of our days trying to manage everything else on our own. Good intentions aren't enough. Willpower isn't enough. You need a source of power beyond yourself. You were made to need God, and admitting that isn't weakness. It's the door to everything.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.

"I can handle it. I can stop the spending, the drinking, the gambling, let go of the hurt, any time I want." What we're really saying is: I'm quite capable of being God myself. And that's actually humanity's oldest problem. It goes all the way back to the Garden. The desire to call the shots, control the image, manage the pain, fix the problem without any outside help. But here's the hard truth: if you could handle this, you would have already. If you could get out any time you wanted, you'd be out by now. The fact that it's still there is the evidence. We don't change when we see the light. We change when we feel the heat. Pain is God's megaphone. So ask yourself honestly: has your attempt to control this situation been making it better or worse?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.

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 AppelEvery 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.

We laugh about being too busy, like it makes us important. We brag about not having a day off in three weeks. We cram our vacations so full that we come home needing to rest. And somewhere along the way, we started believing that the busier we are, the more honorable we are. But God knew from the very beginning that we couldn't run on all eight cylinders seven days a week and still be productive. That's why He built a recharge day into the design. Think about your phone at 5% battery. It still functions like normal right up until it doesn't. And sometimes we play chicken with it anyway because plugging it in feels like a hassle. That's exactly how most of us treat rest. We push until we have nothing left to give. So if you're someone who feels guilty when you stop, the fourth commandment has something important to say to you 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.

Most of us have an owner's manual tucked somewhere in the glove compartment. It tells us when to change the oil, rotate the tires, and run the inspections that keep the vehicle running well over the long haul. We follow it because we know what happens when we don't. Here's the thing: the Bible is God's owner's manual for His creation. And the fourth commandment is essentially His maintenance schedule for your life. Take time off. It sounds simple on the surface, but there's a depth to it that speaks directly into the rhythms of modern life. The commandment actually addresses two extremes, too much work and too little, and the Bible has something honest to say to both. So which extreme are you more prone to? Because that's where this week's conversation begins.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.

Paul writes in Ephesians 5 to make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. He's not just talking about productivity. He's saying the battle for your time is a battle for your heart and soul. Every moment is an opportunity, and once it passes it can never be repeated. There's a story of someone who crossed paths with a woman who had just found out her neighbor died alone, unnoticed for days. He offered a few polite words and moved on to the next thing. The next day Colossians 4:5 showed up in his reading: make the most of every opportunity. It cut deep. So here's the question worth carrying into your weekend. Is there a relationship you've been meaning to invest in? A conversation you've been postponing? A step of faith you keep putting off? Later has a way of never arriving. Now is what we actually 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.

Jesus taught multitudes, had dinner with all kinds of people, talked with the poor, the blind, beggars, and tax collectors. And yet we never read that He rushed anywhere. What was His secret? He arose early and slipped away to a place of solitude to pray. Over and over again. Without that daily discipline, we live an unexamined life, busy but not reflective. Paul puts it bluntly in Ephesians 5: “Wake up.” The easiest thing in the world is to drift through life with no discipline. You can have a perfectly good plan written on a perfectly good calendar and still ignore it. Discipline is what moves you from knowing what you should do to actually doing it today. It's not glamorous. But it's the difference between a life that feels reactive and scattered and one that feels intentional and full.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 people trying to get a handle on their time will sit down, number their priorities one through six, put God first, family second, career third, and call it a plan. But a numbered list doesn't help you navigate the real trade-offs of a real day. Nobody walks up to you with your spouse in one hand and a business contract in the other asking you to choose. Life is full of smaller decisions than that. Paul says in Ephesians 5 to start by understanding what the Lord's will actually is. And here's a thought worth sitting with: God never asks more of us in a given day than we are capable of doing. If you're constantly frustrated for lack of time, maybe you're trying to do more than He's actually asking. The goal isn't to dominate in one area of life. It's to do well across all of them.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.

Paul says in Ephesians 5 to be very careful how you live. That word careful implies thought, planning, and advanced decision-making. But most of us are falling into one of four traps that quietly steal our time without us noticing. Procrastination convinces us there's always tomorrow, until suddenly there isn't. Laziness shows up not just as inactivity but as great initiative with no follow-through. Workaholism locks us onto career achievement like a fighter pilot with target fixation, oblivious to everything we're losing in our peripheral vision. And having no plan at all leaves us with a long list of things we always meant to do but never got around to. Real change starts with an honest assessment. So which of these four patterns do you most recognize in yourself?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.

Thirty years ago, social scientists predicted that technology would automate enough of life that we'd be searching for ways to fill our free time. Then came microwaves, dishwashers, cell phones, laptops, voicemail, and AI. And yet here we are, more pressed for time than ever. The apostle Paul had his own crushing demands, planting churches, writing letters, traveling, being imprisoned, and in Ephesians 5 he cuts straight to it: be careful how you live, making the most of every opportunity. He makes clear that people fall into one of two categories, those who invest their time wisely and those who spend it foolishly. That's a helpful diagnostic. Before anything can change, you have to honestly assess which category you're operating in most of the time. So where is your time actually going? Not where you wish it was going. Where is it actually 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.

Naomi came home empty, asked to be called bitter, and couldn't see past her loss. But God was writing something she couldn't have imagined. Ruth married Boaz, had a son named Obed, who had a son named Jesse, who had a son named David. And if you trace that line forward, you eventually arrive in Bethlehem, and the Christmas story, and Jesus. Boaz was a picture of what the Bible calls a guardian redeemer, someone who comes from the right family, with the right resources, out of love, to pay a price to bring someone back from loss into belonging. Jesus is the ultimate guardian redeemer. What Boaz did for Ruth points directly to what Jesus does for all of us. This is a beautiful reminder, don't give up on God too soon. A death on a cross became an empty tomb and a new beginning for everyone. Nobody saw that coming either.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.

Ruth went out to find a field to work in. As it turned out, she ended up in the field of a wealthy relative named Boaz, who went out of his way to protect her, provide for her, and eventually redeem everything she and Naomi had lost. Just so happened. What a coincidence. In the Bible, whenever you read language like that, pay attention, because God is usually up to something. Boaz was under no legal obligation to do any of what he did. He stepped in out of pure grace, paid the price, and brought two women from emptiness into fullness and from bitterness into belonging. Sound familiar? Sometimes what looks like a dead end is actually a setup for something you couldn't have arranged yourself. So think about a situation in your life right now that feels stuck or hopeless. Could God already be working in ways you can't fully see yet?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.

Naomi left Bethlehem full and came back empty. Her husband was gone. Both sons were gone. And when people who knew her tried to greet her by name, she stopped them. Don't call me Naomi. Call me Mara. Bitter. Because that's what she was. She felt like God hadn't held up His end of the deal. Maybe that sounds familiar. Maybe what you hoped for, what you felt like God was going to deliver, just hasn't materialized. Gerald Sittser lost three generations in one car accident and wrote this: The experience of loss does not have to be the defining moment of your story. The defining moment can be your response to it. We don't get to choose the roles we play, but we do get to choose how we play them. So if you're carrying something painful today, is it possible that God is still writing something in your story that you can't quite see yet?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.

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.

An eleven-day trip turned into forty years. And one of the biggest reasons why is that Israel couldn't stop complaining. God was providing manna every morning, leading them with a pillar of fire, and they were romanticizing life as slaves in Egypt. That's what whining does. It rewrites history, edits out the suffering, and makes the place God delivered you from sound better than the place He's taking you. And it's contagious. It spreads through families, workplaces, and churches the same way it spread through Israel's camp. Here's the thing: whining is the exact opposite of worship. You can't do both at the same time. So what are you currently complaining about that God has actually already been faithful in?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.

There was a perfectly good road from Egypt to Canaan. A direct route. A few weeks of walking, and Israel could have been home. But God took them south, deep into the desert, for an entire year. Not because He was lost, but because He was more concerned with who they were becoming than how fast they arrived. That pattern shows up everywhere in Scripture. Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and David. The roundabout way isn't the exception in God's story. It's practically the rule. So if you're living in the space between where you started and where you want to be, the question worth asking isn't, "When do I get out of here?" But the real question to ask is, "What is God doing in me 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 know we haven't kept all ten. And that's actually the point. The Ten Commandments were designed to show us who we really are and how desperately we need grace. Think about how you use a mirror in the morning.  The mirror just shows you the truth. The commandments hold up a reflection, not a ladder to climb. And when you look honestly, they don't lead to condemnation. They lead you straight to Jesus, the one who fulfilled what we cannot and offers forgiveness freely to anyone who asks. 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 Hebrew word for glory literally means weight or heaviness. It is God's full reality pressing into the world, and it is what filled the tabernacle so completely that even Moses couldn't enter. When was the last time you were genuinely struck by who God is, not what He's done for you, but just who He is? 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.

Even after the golden calf, even after the rebellion, God's response wasn't to pull back. It was to draw closer. He gave Moses detailed instructions for building the tabernacle, a portable sanctuary right in the middle of the Israelites' camp, because He wanted to dwell among His people, not just visit from a distance. Every piece of furniture, every curtain, every offering pointed to the same thing: a holy God who desires relationship. But the tabernacle was always a shadow of something greater. When Jesus came, John tells us He literally "tabernacled" among us. And when He died, the curtain separating people from God's presence was torn open from top to bottom. You don't need a priest to go in for you once a year anymore. Through Jesus, you can approach God with confidence anytime. And through His Spirit, God doesn't just dwell among you. He lives in you. So here's the question worth carrying into your day: are you actually living like that's true?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.

It only took forty days. Forty days since the mountain shook, since they heard God's voice, since they trembled at His presence and begged Moses to speak for them because they were too afraid. And now they're melting down their gold and building something they can see, touch, and control. The golden calf wasn't just an act of rebellion. It was what happens when impatience wins. When we can't trust God's timing, we start filling the gap with something else. Money, success, relationships, comfort, habits. We don't always bow down to idols made of gold, but we all have something that quietly takes God's place when the waiting gets hard. So here's the question worth sitting with today: what have you been building while you wait?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 didn't climb Mount Sinai to make life harder; He went there to move in. When He gave the Ten Commandments amid thunder, lightning, and smoke, it wasn't a power play. It was a covenant. The first four commandments shape how we relate to God; the next six shape how we treat each other. And when Israel responded with one voice, "Everything the Lord has said, we will do," it was a moment of total surrender to a God who simply wanted to live among His people. But that raises a question worth sitting with today: Are there rooms in your life with the door still locked? God's commands aren't guardrails meant to cage you — they're the care of a Father protecting what matters 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 delivering His people from slavery, parting the Red Sea, and providing daily bread in the wilderness, God gathered Israel at Mount Sinai and gave them the Ten Commandments, not as a burden, but as a blessing. These commands weren’t meant to restrict freedom but to protect it, like guardrails on a dangerous road. They reveal what life looks like when love for God and love for others shape every choice. The law was never a ladder to earn God’s approval; it’s a mirror that shows our need for grace and a guide that helps us flourish. So the real question is, how do we see God’s commandments? As control… or as care from a Father who wants to protect what matters 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.