Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 41

Provision

Rich Dixon talks about trusting

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Last time, some people joined FREEDOM TOUR 2013.

We said we’d ride 500 miles from Cheyenne, Wyoming to the Colorado/New Mexico border at Raton Pass, but we had no detailed routes. We said we’d stay in churches, but we hadn’t contacted any churches.  We said we’d provide meals, but we had no idea how to accomplish that.

You get the idea. Becky and I stepped far beyond our ability and experience, far beyond our comfort zone. It was March. The ride...

Preparing for the work (part two)

After Nehemiah talked about what he’d done, in addition to praying, for four months, I decided that it was time to share an essay I wrote about Nehemiah’s plan. I call it, “Nehemiah’s five-step plan to rebuild a destroyed city by asking a foreign king to give you all the supplies you need.” Or that’s what I wanted to call it. Nehemiah said that was too long.

So now I call it, “Five steps to God-shaped plans.” Nehemiah still calls it “my life.”

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“The city is in ruins and the gate...

Preparing for the work (part one)

Having conversations with Nehemiah is risky. I had just finished writing about daily prayer. I went up to take a shower. And as I was turning the water on, I said, out loud, “Wait a minute. Is praying all you did for four months?”

I’m pretty sure Nancy didn’t hear me.

But Nehemiah did. He was waiting for me when I went back down to my office.

“Of course not,” he said, answering my question. “I prayed. I went to work. I started paying attention to the needs around me. I talked more w...

A prayer for Trinity Sunday

God.

We are on the edge of a time that we don’t understand.

That is always true, of course, because we are always on the edge of the future and we are poor acknowledgers that our lives are limited.

But this week, there were missiles in the Middle East and gunshots at our neighborhood Kroger. There were multi-headed tornados and multi-forms of cancer in our friends. There were murders of people who were doing nothing other that loving you and loving other people  And the news, both re...

Praying in a heritage of prayer (part four)

(Continued from yesterday)

Nehemiah spoke first. “Daniel looked at those warnings and promises from Moses and Solomon. He read Jeremiah’s comment about a seventy-year exile and looked at the calendar. He did the math from his own trip into exile in 604 and realized that the seventy years could be completed in four or five years. He wanted to be sure that our people could go home as soon as possible. So Daniel was intent on letting God know that he, Daniel, knew how serious the sin had been...

Praying in a heritage of prayer (part three)

(Continued from Tuesday)

“You see how Daniel and I both refer to Moses in our prayer? We were both looking at what Moses said centuries before. We were both aware of what Solomon had prayed at the dedication of the temple.

“Both Moses and Solomon warned about what would happen when our people turned from God and both told us what God would do if we returned. When we turned, we would be scattered. Moses didn’t say ‘if’, he said ‘when’. Four hundred years apart, our people heard those war...

12 Years Later

Last time, we hung up a sign.

Aside from our sign and the connection to Project Rescue’s Home of HOPE, all we had was a general idea about doing a 500-mile Colorado bike ride.

I don’t think we expected anyone to accept our invitation to join us. I secretly hoped they wouldn’t – because we had no clue how to lead a group bike ride.

I’ve learned Jesus doesn’t seem to care much about details and qualifications. It’s almost as if He delights in being part of big, crazy dreams that don’t ...

Praying in a heritage of prayer (part two)

(Continued from yesterday)

For once I felt like a teacher when talking with Nehemiah. Or a forensic Bible student. “I realized that both you and Daniel were in positions of significant trust with foreign kings. Your book starts about 100 years after Daniel’s finishes, but we don’t know how many years passed between you. And then the appearance of Mordecai in a position of responsibility in the court of your king’s predecessor suggests that there were people a baton pass apart who served th...

Praying in a heritage of prayer (part one)

One day, I got curious about Nehemiah’s prayer. I searched an online Bible for the phrase: “great and awesome God.” It’s a phrase Nehemiah uses at the beginning of his confessional prayer, the prayer he prays for months. I discovered that he wasn’t original. The phrase had been used before.

“Why were you looking at my words?” Nehemiah asked. He had been sitting in his chair in the corner of my office while I was searching.

I thought about it. “I’m not sure. Something about the phrase s...

A prayer for Pentecost.

God.

It is the day of Pentecost on the calendar.

The day when we remember your Spirit coming into a room with the sound of a tornado, with the quiet explosion of flame.

In the aftermath there was proclamation and unity, story telling and community.
And then resistance from the outside and disagreement on the inside.
Even in the first months of the Church, we did not get along.

We still struggle.

In the name of your power, we build our petty kingdoms.
In the name of your community,...