October 2010 – 300 words a day

Nonsensical peace

God gives peace at moments that make no sense. At times when by every right, everything emotionally should be cascading in, there can be peace. Not a denial, but an acknowledgment that yes, indeed, there is cancer, but God has a clue. Not a denial but an acknowledgment that yes, that casket holds the body […]

by Jon Swanson

On not being anxious.

I understand being anxious. Not in the “looking forward to” sense or the “can hardly wait” sense but in the “aaaiiieee” sense. And I understand that what I’m about to write is easier to say than to do. But that isn’t a reason to not write it. Paul makes a very simple statement in Philippians […]

by Jon Swanson

Ebenezer

Stone of help. That’s what Ebenezer means. It’s a Bible name. For a rock. Samuel sets up a stone between Mizpah and Shen. He calls it Ebenezer. He says, “So far, God has helped us.” That’s the end of the story. It started with Israel being tired of what was happening in their spiritual lives. […]

by Jon Swanson

We can all find problems.

On Sunday, we were talking about church. At church. In our discussion, I was going to ask, “How many of you have bad experiences with church.” My guess is that most of the 20 or so people in the room would have raised their hands. And then I was going to say, “Me too.” And […]

by Jon Swanson

Introducing Steve

Humility is an interesting challenge. How do we get out of the spotlight? How do we do things in ways that don’t call attention to ourselves? I suppose this thinking was triggered by having spent several conversations during the past couple weeks looking at Paul’s story about how Jesus humbled himself. (I talked about it […]