Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 309

Put it on your calendar.

That’s what I suggested to a friend about his desire to spend time reading the Bible. That’s because I decided to try it myself. I’ve talked before about my morning coffee with God. It’s a good time, not out of obligation but necessity. I need to look at the Bible in the morning.

But I realized recently that although I get up every morning at 5:30, my specific time of sitting in the chair is pretty loose. I can sit for a long time in front of the computer before I sit in the chair. And that si...

Mark and Rachel and hot water.

Father God,

Mark is having surgery today. You and I both know it’s cancer. And it’s big. And you know that the surgeon said that it looks pretty contained, and you know that what I’d love is for it to disappear. The whole ice cream cone with a softball for the top. Just gone.

And Jacob’s sister is grieving the loss of her baby, the one she never got to meet, the one that was two months along.

And M doesn’t have a working water heater or a job. And you know the other items, the ones that I don’t...

25% of the time

What if you used to get angry at everything other people said. I mean, you got into arguments all the time. If someone held a stopwatch on you, the time from initiation of conversation to your explosion was thirty seconds or less. When James says the tongue is “A restless evil, full of deadly poison,” illustrated Bibles had your picture.

And what if you started asking God to help you control your anger. You were tired of the pain you caused.

And what if someone held a stopwatch on you now and d...

The man sitting next to me, writing.

I sat in the second row at the seminar, third seat from the center aisle. I never sit that close, but I had decided that I wanted to concentrate, to focus on learning. There was a man in the first seat by the center aisle. He leaned over, looked at my nametag, and misread the “where I’m from.” line. I smiled, corrected him, and looked at his nametag.

I immediately recognized his name, and then his voice. He’s a reputable pastor in a reputable church in Chicago. I’ve known his name for years, l...

You get to.

First published April 25, 2009

Rest. You get to do that.

Pray. You get to do that.

Trust. You get to do that.

Sleep. You get to do that.

Laugh. You get to do that.

Weep. You get to do that.

Ask. You get to do that.

Love. You get to do that.

Repent. You get to do that.

Thank. You get to do that.

Sing. You get to do that.

Kiss. You get to do that.

Work. You get to do that.

Talk. You get to do that.

Lament. You get to do that.

Question. You get to do that.

Come. You get to do that.

Go. You get to do that.

Read. Yo...

Suspicions about the king.

Continuing the investigation of “Who killed Uriah?”:

It took Jethro two days to get from Rabbah to Jerusalem. He could have completed the forty miles in a day, but he needed time to think. And to arrive in Jerusalem with some energy.

After his conversation with the messenger, it was clear to Jethro that David was a person of interest in Uriah’s death. Jethro found the calm response to the deaths of several of his soldiers to be odd. It’s not that people didn’t die. Jethro was very aware of the...

waving.

First published June 16, 2010

Though I sit with my feet on my desk, my mind is racing.

I am thinking through teaching projects, writing projects and a retreat. The threads of thinking are tangling; each time I tug on one, my mind races to another. “Is this the project to start or is that? Can I tie some of the research together? What if I start here and then work on that and then expand on the other one?”

I should just pick one and work on it. Multitasking isn’t effective for creative projects....

A messenger talks to the king.

From 2 Samuel 11:18-25

“You had to tell David about Uriah? Was that the battle when several men were killed?”

The man nodded. Jethro filled the messenger’s cup again. “It was a strange thing. We were sending squads into battle regularly those days. But it was almost a battle game. We’d advance, they’d fire, we’d back up. There weren’t many injuries. That day, a squad went into battle, but apparently they had orders to actually engage the Ammonites. And it was right into the toughest enemy.”

Jeth...

A crucial messenger.

Last week: We met a soldier named Jethro. At the start of the week he was sitting by the destroyed Ammonite city of Rabbah. He was recalling his investigation of the death of Uriah. His recollections took him to the siege of the city, some months before. When we left him, Jethro had just discovered a connection between Uriah and Joab.

Jethro had to figure out a way to blend in while keeping an eye on Joab’s command site. He was sitting by a campfire, planning. He could see Joab’s tent.

He notic...

Faulty voices

We were fresh out of college and went off to the big city. Our first real jobs were exciting – and stretching.

My buddy invited me to join him for church one Sunday. He was part of a televangelist-focused megachurch. The main preacher loved the spotlights and glory that came with his position. The wall behind the stage was covered with all manner of crutches and braces from people who may or may not have been healed through that ministry.

That preacher was not the kind of guy I liked. His wife...