from my notebook

15Aug
by Jon Swanson
I jot notes to myself. Sometimes they become part of lessons or sermons or posts. Sometimes they just accumulate.  It’s Monday. Have some short thoughts.
  • If you asked three people who know you well to honestly evaluate how judgmental you are, could you trust what they say or would you know that somehow, for some reason, they are completely wrong?
  • Your spirituality scorecard for others is the one that God will use for you.
  • The disciples walked right with Jesus and didn’t understand everything that was going on. But they decided there wasn’t any other choice. They followed.
  • You can keep thinking about how tired you are and how adrift you feel, or, you can ask God to keep guiding you step by step and then you can give him credit for it.
  • If I am a fan of yours, how much am I responsible for your image of yourself?
  • If confession is the release of pressure, repentance is walking back up the path of relationship.
  • In calling Peter, Jesus didn’t say, “Don’t do that.” He said, “come do this.”
  • Listening to top-forty radio, songs worked their way into my mind unnoticed. And I learned every word. I still know “Copacabana.” There is a place for reading one or five psalms every day. Just reading them. Not even meditatively. It can be like God’s greatest hits playing in the background of our lives.
  • If you knew that you didn’t have to work hard to make God happy, that he loved you, how would that change how you live?
  • Most of us hate grace. It creates in us a sense of being beholden to someone.
  • Story leaves tracks on the heart and mind.
  • For Jesus, the story, the parable, isn’t designed to sit nicely in sentimentality. It’s told to pierce pomposity.

7 thoughts on “from my notebook”

  2. Frank Reed

    Wow, my notes to myself are usually about picking up something at the store etc etc. I have to “up my game” a bit.

    All great reminders, Jon. The one that really struck me was that “Story leaves tracks on the heart and mind.” I really want to be telling a better story but I will be honest, I find it hard at times.

    Just writing that makes me want to tell a better one even more. Please keep expanding your reach Jon. Your thoughts are like jumper cables for others’ batteries.

    Like

  3. Maria

    Those points really hit home. And what a great idea, to get the Psalms in there with “Copacabana”…made me laugh and yet it makes perfect sense, to do that.

    Like

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