Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 306

Recalibration

I woke up too early. It was still dark. The longest day of the year was already slipping away into a distant memory, so the light that normally seeped around the edges of the bedroom curtains wasn’t there. I wasn’t sure what time it was, so I looked at my bedside watch. It has a dial that lights up when I push a little button. Aaah – it was late enough that I didn’t have to try to get back to sleep again.

Then I went to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. The clock on the kitchen stove was 5...

Deep breath.

Dear friends.

I’m taking a break. I’m not sure for how long.

I’ve got too many things happening right now to be able to reflect well enough here.

Nancy’s mom is pretty sick. Nancy’s been there a lot during the past five months. We’re guessing that there isn’t much time left. Her dad is doing well for an 89-year-old with his own health struggles.

My mom’s living with Alzheimer’s. She still knows us. She just doesn’t know when and where very well.

I’m teaching a college class for the first time in t...

Enjoy the day.

Filed under: bible reading

Learning to take counsel.

More on developing practical skills for hearing God better:

Yet I am always with you;

you hold me by my right hand.

You guideme with your counsel,

and afterward you will take me into glory.

Psalm 73:23-24

If we cannot take counsel in any part of our lives, it will be hard to take counsel from God. And that’s part of what hearing God involves. We ask questions about what we should do. We want direction. We say that we wish God would just tell us what to do.

So let’s find out how good we are at tak...

Why I write.

Becky tagged me. She talked about why she writesand then included me in a list of three people she was challenging to answer the same question.I’ve talked about it a little before (writing for you and me), but I want to think about it again.

I write because I can’t concentrate very well early in the morning. When I’m sitting in my chair and I am trying to chat with God, I lose focus, I wander. So I will often write my questions, or my part of the conversation, or a list of names.

I write becaus...

Learn to quiet our hearts.

More on developing practical skills for hearing God better:

Psalm 131 is what we call “self-talk”. It is what we say to ourselves as we remind ourselves of what is important. And it is up to us to learn to quiet our hearts.

OLord, my heart is notproud, nor my eyeshaughty;

Nor do Iinvolve myself ingreat matters,

Or in thingstoodifficult for me.

Surely I havecomposed and quieted my soul;

Like a weanedchildrestsagainst his mother,

My soul is like a weaned childwithin me.

I cannot come up with answers to...

Removing yourself from distractions

Yesterday I talked about developing practical skills in hearing God better. Here’s an example.

1. Learn to remove yourself from distractions as much as it is up to you. Jesus regularly went into the hills in order to talk with God. That practice may be worth developing.

Practice: For ten minutes, go into a room away from other people. If you need to, turn on white noise to block out the sound of the TV in the other room. Take a piece of paper and write down the projects and to do things that co...

Building the core.

Here’s an email I wrote last Friday. It’s an introduction to a project that I’m working on.

I’m at home today, as I am most Fridays (I’m a pastor and it’s the day I take out of the office). At the top of my project list today is writing for my blog that answers, as practically as I can, “How can I hear God better?”

It’s a question lots of people ask. A friend used topush me to figure out how to create recipes for this and other spiritual practices. But I could never figure out how to separate “...

More than merely reading.

I’m preparing to run a 10K. That’s 6.2 miles.

I have five running books on the desk behind me, all with multi-week race preparation plans. I’ve spent much time weighing which plan to use. I count the weeks until September 27. I read the details about training elements. Speed runs, striders, interval training. I knew nothing about these two months ago. Stretching, strength training, long runs. Each has advocates and strategies.

The plan I’m choosing for this first 10K is the one that says to run...

couch to 5K in seven years

I ran my first 5K race on August 9. Andrew ran the same race. He finished ten minutes before I did, so I can’t say that we ran together. But he drove 2.5 hours to run the race, so that counts as together. Nancy came and cheered for both of us.

The last time I tried to run for fitness was the summer of 2011. Two or three times in a week that summer, I ran and walked about a mile. And then my knee started to hurt in a damaged way. I went to the doctor. He said to stop the high impact of running....