Jon C. Swanson's Blog, page 6

Being careful.

Nancy sneezed. I was in my downstairs office, she was in her upstairs office. And I heard her sneeze in the quiet of the house.

“Bless you,” I said via Facebook Messenger. (I’m not going to holler it.)

And then I asked her for a word.

“Bless you,” she answered via Facebook Messenger.

We do talk face-to-face. Often. But we also often email, text, call, and message. Because we want to offer each other our words, our awareness, our sympathy, our ideas, our commiseration. When we leav...

Happy Monday.

I hear the question often. “God must have kept me alive for a reason. I wonder why?”

I talked about it yesterday, in fact. 

A coworker had a major medical event. Eventually she recovered and went back to work. I said, “What if your reason is to be an even more effective, even more compassionate coworker? What if it’s not about quitting and building an orphanage somewhere?” 

Because this person is already skilled at her work. Now she understands it from the inside. 

She said she ha...

A prayer for the twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary TIme

God.

You know us. You know all about us. You make us inside and out. You are completely aware of the things we are good at and the things we struggle with. You are aware of the things that annoy us about ourselves. You are aware of our insecurities and our anxieties, our adequacies and our competencies. You are aware of what you have equipped us to be able to do, yet you don’t disown us when we don’t measure up.

In fact, you don’t actually measure. Not like we do.

You know us and are...

SZALLGUD

I was given a great reminder while waiting at a traffic light the other day. I was behind a truck with a license plate that read: “SZALLGUD” – “it’s all good.”

I’m not sure what the truck owner meant by it, but it was a great reminder that “…God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” (Romans 8:28).

When we are in the thick of life, it may not seem like it’s all good. It might seem like it’s all bad.

Go...

Enough.

On May 9, 2018, Rev. Kent Green was ordained as a minister in the Missionary Church. Kent serves as a chaplain in a hospital, Parkview Regional Medical Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The text he chose to be read that night was Philippians 2:1 to 18.

Kent asked me to bring the message for his ordination service. As I reflected on the work of chaplains, this message became not just a charge to Kent but a charge to all Chaplains at least for those working from a Christian perspective.

On Augus...

Don’t Forget

Rich Dixon is helping us to remember.

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Recently, Jon said we often forget parts of the story.

Speaking for myself, I tend to forget big parts of the story most of the time. Here’s an example.

Over on my blog (richsride.org), I’ve been focused for a while on the Sermon on the Mount. By itself, I suppose that’s okay. But it’s awfully easy to begin thinking those three chapters encapsulate Jesus’ entire message. It’s a small step from there to ignoring the entire big story of whi...

More on the picnic Jesus would plan.

The second thing about a picnic Jesus plans is this: don’t assume that you will get the best seats because you know the host.

Jesus was watching the guests at this banquet playing a game. They would come in. They would look around. They would try to estimate how important they were in relation to the people already there. And they would decide how close to the best seat they should sit. For Jesus, who could read their faces, who could read their hearts, the calculations were plain to see.

...

A picnic Jesus would plan.

I started wondering what kind of Labor Day picnic Jesus would plan. Would he actually plan a party like the one he told the Pharisees to plan?

Jesus knew the rules, too. Just because he broke them didn’t mean he didn’t know them.

As he arrived at the dinner, he discovered that he wasn’t the only special guest. In front of him as he walked in was a man who was retaining fluid. It’s not clear where. It could have been that his ankles were swollen, or his abdomen. He wasn’t well. And ther...

A prayer for the twenty-second Sunday in ordinary time.

God.

We think we talk to you all the time. We ask you for protection for family in the path of the hurricane. We ask you to keep our loved one from dying in the emergency room. We ask you for jobs and health and money and relief.

Then we talk about you showing up.
Or we talk about you not listening.
Or we talk about our prayer not working.

God, I’m not sure that we show up to you.
I’m not sure we are listening for you.

I’m not sure that our prayer works. Because I’m not sure that we ...

Acknowledged insufficiency

Forty years ago this summer, Nancy and I moved from Austin, Texas, to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and I started teaching “Intro to Public Speaking” at Fort Wayne Bible College.  I had finished my Ph.D. coursework, and had passed my qualifying exams, and was supposed to be figuring out a research question for my dissertation. It took another four years to find that question and write that project.  

During the next eleven years, three children were born, and one child died. We bought our first ho...