A Great Work: A Conversation With Nehemiah For People (Who Want To Be) Doing Great Works
Nov 29, 2013by Jon SwansonRead this and over 1 million books withKindle Unlimited.Get it TODAY, Jun 20FREE Shipping on eligible ordersMore Buying ChoicesBorrow for free from your Kindle device.Join Amazon Prime- by Jon SwansonBorrow for free from your Kindle device.Join Amazon Prime
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Anticipation: An Advent Reader
Dec 4, 2012by Jon SwansonBorrow for free from your Kindle device.Join Amazon Prime
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Blog postIn the old days, when I was a pastor, a big part of my job was giving people permission.
Not in the sense that I held the keys and made the rules. Not in the sense of making people raise their hands and ask permission.
More in the sense that people would describe what they thought the rules were, or had been taught that the rules were, and I could say, “God’s not making that rule.”
That doesn’t mean God’s not pretty clear about some things: Love God. Love your neighbor -
Blog postIf I’ve mentioned this before, I apologize. Sometimes we need to repeat things, even to ourselves.
The other day, I stopped to talk to a patient. We chatted briefly, but I knew that she didn’t need to be entertaining visitors. I asked her what she would like me to ask God for on her behalf.
“Discernment,” she said. “For both of us.”
I smiled. I mentioned that James talks about asking God for wisdom. And then I prayed for her and her husband.
I start to walk out -
Blog postOn Thursdays we don’t need big challenging thoughts. We need quiet reminders. We need to remember what we believed on Sunday, what we promised on Monday, what we lost track of on Tuesday. We need to sit for a moment, just a moment, and shake off the chaos that was Wednesday and rest.
We can’t rest long. There are only two days left in the week. Which is, of course, a lie we tell ourselves. The week runs all the way to Saturday night. When the next one starts.
It’s enough to ma -
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Blog postHe tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young. Isaiah 40.
A few months ago, I met a family in ER. The family had been in an accident that could have been tragic, but wasn’t. However, mom was in one room being checked on, dad was in another, a sister was in another, and the three-year-old boy was scared. Mom was still -
Blog postSheepscot Bay is just off the Maine coast. It’s part of the Atlantic Ocean and is much too large for an iPhone camera to contain. And yet every day, at beaches like this, we pull out our phones and cameras. We do our best to capture the sounds, the images, the perspective, the immensity, the moment.
I’m not mocking the effort. Far from it. The other day I was looking at the ocean, wanting to capture something. But even as I pulled out my phone, I wondered why I was doing it.
A -
Blog postOn Sunday, we read a story about Israel asking Samuel to find a king for them.I unpacked that story a bit, and a couple other things. I wrapped up my message like this:
We often want impossible things. We tell God what we want. And he tells us what the implications are. God does, or one of his delegates like Samuel does. But we don’t want that answer. “Fix it anyway!” we say.
Sometimes God gives us our way. And the results are complicated. Sometimes he doesn’t, not because he’ -
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Blog postBack in March 2017, I mentioned a book for leaders, written by Terry Linhart, a good friend and colleague. The Self-Aware Leader is written to help leaders look into our blindspots, the places that are just out of sight of the rearview mirror. Maturing doesn’t mean that we don’t have them, it means that we know we need to discover what’s happening just below the surface in our lives.
I keep talking with people who are complaining about the blind spots of other leaders. That’ -
Blog postThe simplest answer is to take a time machine and travel back and start following Jesus around. That’s how the first disciples learned.
Peter and James and John. Mary Magdalene. A bunch of other people. They went where Jesus went. They ate what Jesus ate. They wore what Jesus wore. They listened to what Jesus taught and tried it out. When Jesus gave them a project, they tried it. They learned to live the way that Jesus lived.
These days, there are people who think that living -
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Blog postI started this post a month ago. On that night, I picked my own word. I simply didn’t have enough brain energy to ask Nancy for a place to start, so I decided to start with “nothing.”
It turns out, you and I both need to be reminded that from time to time, starting with nothing is an acceptable place to start. After we’ve had hard conversations, worked long shifts, wrestled with death and life and change and stability, we can be expected to have nothing left with which to start.
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Blog postNancy 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 commise -
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