Author: Bekah Mason

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scrapbooking and remembrance


I scrapbook. There, I said it. I say it with the trepidation of a first time attendee at an AA meeting; “Hi, I’m Bekah and I’m a scrapbooker.” Most of the world of scrapbooking is dominated by soccer moms who are documenting the lives of their beloved children in minute detail. Go to any local scrapbook store and you will find paper commemorating every first event a child could have and every vacation location conceivable. Not exactly the world in which you would find your typical single, childless, twenty-something woman.

I have taken a liking to scrapbooking as a pictorial journal of my own life. In the last four years I have scrapbooked mission trips, summers at Camp, trips to visit friends on both coasts and events in daily life. I love taking my photos and placing them in a storybook order, all the while wondering who will look and enjoy my story. I wonder if they will “get” what it is I am trying to say without words. But the best part of scrapbooking is sitting down and looking back over that particular time in life. History and nostalgia buffs like me generally love nothing more than spending a day in yesterday, and my scrapbooks allow me to do that in living color.

I’m currently working on my scrapbook of my trip to Afghanistan. I know, I’m a year behind. I never said I scrapbooked consistently. Anyway, as I was working on it last night, I was talking with my friend Rachel and I made the comment that I thought this might be my favorite scrapbook yet. She inquired as to the reason for my attachment to this particular book, and at first I half-jokingly replied it was because I had taken awesome pictures and had then purchased really pretty paper on which to stick my awesome photos. I was only half-joking because I really do love my pictures from that trip and those who know me well know I have a slight addiction to buying pretty scrapbook paper.

But after I thought about it for a moment, I quite seriously shared with her that this book would be my favorite so far because it reminded me of the work the Lord had done in my life in those 10 days. When my plane touched down in New York on June 3, 2007, it landed with a different Bekah Mason than the one who had left a week and a half earlier.

I think this is why the Israelites were commanded to build alters of remembrance. You can look throughout Scripture and see how remembering the past alters our view of the present and the future. God told the Israelites to remember Him, to remember how He led them out of Egypt, how He had provided for them when they had nothing, how He had made covenant with their forefathers. They were told that if they remembered Him and His laws and covenants that their way would prosper and He would bless them.

There are also examples of what happens when we stop remembering the Lord and how He has provided for us and met our every need. When the Israelites stopped remembering how the Lord had provided manna and began remembering the rich foods they had forsaken in Egypt they became discontented with what the Lord had provided. When the kings did not remember the words of the Lord, they led Israel into pagan worship and abandoned the ways of their fathers.

All of this got me thinking, what do I spend my time remembering? I know that I am most content in the here and now when my time of reflection is spent thinking on the times the Lord has guided me with His sovereign and merciful hand. I am most content in Him when I look back and see how He has provided for me and how He has shown me mercy when I deserved none. I am most content when I am considering the peace and joy I experience now from trusting that His way is the best way for me, even when His leading doesn’t make sense or seem best.

I also know that times of discontent creep in when I put on my rose colored glasses and look back at times of sin in my life. Much like Israelites thinking about the food and riches they had left in Egypt, I sometimes ask of God, “You led me out of Egypt for this?” But it is in these times that, also like the Israelites, I have romanticized the past and have forgotten that while times seemed good, I was in bondage! When slavery looks good, we have taken our eyes off of the Savior.

So I will continue to scrapbook. My scrapbooks are my testimony of remembering how the Lord led me out of Egypt and into the great adventure of following Him to the ends of the earth for His glory.

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Let us consider…


Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching. –Hebrews 10:19-25

While working through the above Scripture, I did a study of the key words in the passage. When I got to verse 24, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good deeds,” I looked up the Greek word that had been translated consider, and I read the following definition: “to perceive, remark, observe, understand, to consider attentively, fix one’s eyes or mind upon.” In this verse, the writer is telling his audience of fellow believers that they should take time and carefully contemplate ways in which they can move each other to find deeper and better ways of loving and serving Christ and one another. We are to literally spend our time thinking of ways to agitate one another to love more and work better for the cause and glory of Christ. When I originally read the full definition of the word translated as consider, I was convicted, because I know that I do not spend much intentional time contemplating ways to help my fellow believers have a closer walk with Christ.

I then searched consider to see where else this word was used in Scripture. I found that it has been translated in different ways in different parts of the New Testament, but the meaning is the same. In Matthew 7:3, Jesus uttered this word in a very different context: 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Jesus is speaking here during the Sermon on the Mount, and He tells His listeners that they are spending their time attentively considering and fixing their eyes on the sin in the lives of those around them while ignoring the sin in their own lives.

The comparison of this word in these two passages further proved to me the sharpness of the double edged sword that is the Word of God, because it pierced me, dividing bone and marrow. Just from these two verses, I have a lifetime’s worth of work before me. I realized immediately that most of the time, I have these instructions completely backwards. Not only am I not attentively considering ways that I can spur on my brothers and sisters in Christ to love and good deeds, but I spend a lot of my time attentively considering their sin while ignoring my own.

This week, I am praying that the Lord will break me of my habit of considering the specks in the eyes of my friends and family and will replace that sin with the God-glorifying habit of considering how to spur them on to love and good deeds. I am also praying that I will be more willing to consider the planks in my own eyes so that He is able to remove them and make me a more able servant for Him.

What will you consider this week?

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Thank you!


A big thank you to the Couples classes at Morris Hill for helping us bless the ladies who will be heading to Africa for missionary placements! Your gifts allowed us to make bags for 11 ladies who will deploy this year in many different countries, doing many different jobs. These ladies and their families will be doing jobs ranging from church planting to being dorm parents to sports evangelism using basketball as a platform to speak to people about Christ.

I pray that you will all know that you are now have a personal stake in the work of the Kingdom in Africa. Please pray for these ladies as they and their families go and serve. I also pray that this involvement in overseas missions will get you thinking about the possibility of serving as well. These families are just like you and me; one of them made the point today that the only thing that makes them different from other believers is that they heard the call to serve and they obeyed. If you have never done so, please pray and tell the Lord that even if He never calls you to serve Him in another city or country that you would be willing to do so. Sometimes we don’t even know God is calling us until we take the time to listen for that call.

Thanks again for your faithfulness in this project. It makes me proud to be able to tell people here at school that my home church is so faithful to help with things like this! Your gifts were greatly appreciated by everyone!

I have attached some pictures from the event so that you can see some faces to go with your prayers.

Love to you all,

Bekah 🙂

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Christians and Culture


I recently was assigned an essay in which I was to answer the question, “How ought Christians react to the shifting moral values of culture?” Here’s my answer…

I have read the assigned book, Reforming the Morality of Usury, in its entirety.

Much like the time of the Reformers, today’s culture is in the midst of a massive shift in moral thinking. As secular culture becomes more permissive concerning topics like abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, genetic research, and even financial responsibility, it is the responsibility of the church to determine the absolute morality of such issues in light of the absolute truth of the Word of God. Often concessions are made in issues of morality by claiming that, since the culture has changed, many laws of the Bible are now outdated. For example, the Old Testament prohibition on tattooing is used to support this argument because tattooing is currently a culturally accepted art form in America. Issues of capital punishment are also used by some to decry the Bible as a moral authority. Because our current culture does not solicit the use of capital punishment for behaviors such as homosexuality, adultery, or dishonoring parents, then it is reasoned that none of the moral laws or consequences should apply any longer. With this view of law in the Bible, the proverbial baby of moral law is thrown out with the bathwater of time bound, theocratic law.

If believers hold to the presupposition that the “all or nothing” view of law in Scripture is incorrect, how should Christians view and apply Scripture to daily life? The ever-changing nature of the world is further proof that the world is diametrically opposed to the immutable God, Creator of the universe. Secular culture is constantly shifting the boundaries of right and wrong, but Scripture contains God’s statement concerning Himself: “I the Lord do not change” (Mal 3:6). While God was speaking of His covenant promise to Israel, this concept of God’s immutability carries through His entire being. Regardless of the behavior of His chosen people Israel, God’s covenant with them was never changing, and neither was His response to them; when they obeyed He blessed them and when they strayed He disciplined them. The Psalmist praises God that His love and faithfulness endures forever (cf. 100:5; 107:1; 117:2; 118:1-4, 29; 136:1-5).

Just as God is unchanging, we are told that His word is unchanging as well. Throughout Scripture, God’s words never change. From Genesis to Revelation, each author, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, traces the consistent story of redemption and salvation. The Lord tells Isaiah to proclaim to the people in Isaiah 40:7-8, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” Though men will rise and fall and be blown away like the grass in the wind, the unchanging Word of God will remain forever.

According to these very brief glimpses into the nature of God and of His Word, one can surmise that God is unchanging in His very nature. Just as the Scripture sheds light on the nature of God, it also reveals the nature of man. As mentioned above, God told Isaiah that people are like grass and they fade in glory and fall. The prophet Jeremiah was told that the heart of man is wicked (17:9). Samuel told King Saul that “He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind” (1 Sam 15:29). When Paul describes weak-willed women to Timothy, part of that description includes that they are “swayed by all kinds of evil desires” (2 Tim 3:6). Though man is always changing in thought and deed and conviction, God never changes

So according to the Scriptures, which have been shown to be unchanging, God is unchanging, trustworthy, and loving in His eternal nature, but man is changing, swaying, untrustworthy, and wicked. If the story stopped there, it would seem hopeless for the church to react to the changing culture in any other way than to mirror culture itself. There are, however, commands given to the church specifically concerning how we as believers are to interact with the changing culture of the current society. In Romans 12:2, the apostle Paul instructs the believers in Rome: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.” As believers, we are not to conform to the changing winds of culture. We are instead to renew our minds so that we are able to test and approve God’s will. By renewing our minds through studying Scripture, we will be able to rightly discern the world around us. Peter also addresses this topic in 1 Pet 1:13-16: “Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’”

Succinctly written in the very words of God, the church is told that as the culture around us changes, we are to nevertheless be holy as God is holy. We are to remain steadfast and unwavering in the beliefs that the precepts in Scripture are right, true, beautiful, restorative, and refreshing. The only way that Scripture will be seen in such a light is for believers to uphold it regardless of the culture around us. Scripture tells us that God is calling unto himself a people from every tongue, tribe, and nation, which assumes that His Gospel supersedes the fluctuating tides of culture. The church’s responsibility is to continue living in such a way that we are not only hearers of the never changing word, but we are also doers of the same.

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“You Complete Me” and other myths of relationships


Great quote from JD Greear’s blog… I’m definitely going to check out this book…

From JD Greear’s blog…

from Angela Thomas in her excellent book, Am I Beautiful: Questions Every Woman Asks:

Here is one thing I can say with great confidence: the man that you love is just a man. He may be your soul mate. He is possibly your best friend. He may be hunky and funny and surprising and strong, but he will never – not in a million years, not if he goes to relationship therapy twice a week and keeps every promise written – be enough to fill your soul…he will never make you whole. He wasn’t made to be enough. He could not be even if he tried. He is just a man, and he can give only as a man and interact as a man and love as a man. He wasn’t designed to fill the depth of a woman’s longings, anticipate every need, and jump through every hoop. He can’t. Those deep places inside you were made for God.

The man is simply a vessel. God uses him to give you a part of the filling of His holy love. But he is not the only vessel, not is he able to fill you from his own strength, nor is he the only thing you will ever need. Are you hearing this? There will never be a man on the face of the earth who can make you whole. Being filled in the depths of your soul is only about the love of God…knowing him…hearing His voice…believing that He’s wild about you…dancing in His arms.

The man’s responsibility is to be the vessel and to be a good one. He is called to listen to God. To obey as the Holy Spirit leads. To love you in the ways God prompts his heart. If he loves you as a man who walks with God and if you realize that the vessel is just a man, there can be an amazing exchange of healthy love. Through the man you can taste a part of the love that God has for you.

Your responsibility with the man is to let him be just that. He is not your girlfriend. He is not perfect and never will be. He is not your Savior. He is not your filling, nor is he the answer to all your longings. You must let him be fallen and forgiven and in process. You must learn the difference between men who are healthy and those who are not. You must not mistake his opinions for the opinions of God. He may have never called you beautiful or smart or witty. No matter what the man says or doesn’t say, God is still wild about you.

How have you overcome the “idolatry” of romance?