News From the Frontlines: June 27th, 2026
- Joshua Budimlic
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Welcome, my friends, to another edition of News From the Frontlines—a weekly segment on the blog where I strive to highlight articles, essays, podcast episodes, videos, and more, all for your pleasure and encouragement in the Lord. I’ve linked to a wide variety of material today, ranging from a reflection on death and The Lord of the Rings, to God’s purposes in prayer, to whether or not pets will be in Heaven. As with all the work I do here at Iotas in Eternity, my chief hope is that you are blessed by these everyday words and that they may abound to eternal purposes as you read, reflect, and apply the truths therein.
News From the Frontlines:
Recommended Reading, Listening, & Watching
Just as I’ve done many times in my own writing, Zak Mellgren draws from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to reflect on the death of a loved one and the hope we have in Christ—providing further proof that The Lord of the Rings is unquestionably the greatest work of imaginative fiction in human history.
As with last week, I asked my wife to suggest an article for News From the Frontlines. I think I’ll make this a weekly tradition! As a Biblical Counselor, she has many wonderful insights into that world that I think you’ll find encouraging, helpful, and even challenging. Hopefully the title of this week’s article is enough to arouse your curiosity—“Our ancestors rejected God’s Word for golden calves and Greek philosophy. We reject it for far more respectable things: clinical research, therapeutic models, neurobiological frameworks, and the ever-expanding empire of the social sciences.”
Randy Alcorn is among my favorite Christian writers—indeed, I owe much of my theology about Heaven to his writing ministry through the years. In this touching piece, Randy reflects on the passing of his dear dog, Moses, and considers the role that animals—and pets in particular—might play in the New Heavens and the New Earth. While the Bible doesn’t explicitly mention God’s purposes for animals in Heaven, I wholeheartedly agree with Randy that certain portions of Scripture, such as Romans 8:19-23, leave the door wide open for such a reality. We shall see!
“A meal cooked for a neighbor, a patient interaction with a child, a kind word to a discouraged colleague — each can become an echo of Jesus’s full provision, perfect patience, and infinite kindness to us. When we love and serve others because we’ve already received infinitely more from God, the deed (as simple and mundane as it may seem to be) grows great. What a liberating and hope-giving truth! It blows the dust from our ho-hum days, causing them to sparkle with significance. It means the world is bursting with opportunities for us to act in ways that matter forever.”
I love reading how other writers, especially good writers, go about the business of writing. Trevin Wax begins by saying, “I often tell aspiring writers that there’s no way to avoid the work. Not if you want to truly write, rather than merely enjoy the afterglow of having written something. Not if you want to really think, rather than dash off an idea and watch generative AI spit out something you can slap your name on.”
Writing for Desiring God, David Mathis writes about God’s design and desire for our prayer lives—a particularly comforting article for those of us who may be in seasons of waiting. “However many unanswered questions we have about prayer, God makes it abundantly clear that he wants us to pray. He doesn’t just stomach our prayers; he delights in them. He invites them. He beckons. He woos. He calls for prayer and reminds us to pray, and works his sovereign angles to elicit our prayers. He wants to hear from his people.”
Earlier this year, I began reading through The Holiness of God for the second time while also leading our weekly Bible study through R.C.’s six-part video series of the same name. Each episode is about 30 minutes in length and is currently uploaded to Ligonier’s YouTube channel. I’ve linked to the first episode in the series, titled “The Importance of Holiness.” Whether you’re looking for something to listen through on your way to and from work, or in need of material for a small group, I cannot recommend this series highly enough.
Photo by Danny Greenberg, Unsplash
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