Rep. Jon Dunwell

From the article — Again, there are bad calls. When it comes to the Supreme Court, Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Buck v. Bell, Wickard v. Filburn and Roe v. Wade come to mind, among others. But wrathful fulmination when things don’t go your way erodes the institutional respect necessary for politics as we understand it to happen at all. It has a tendency to lead the wrathful outside the political system for redress. There lies chaos and anarchy, wailing and gnashing of teeth, or what one Founder called “accident and force”—the sort of thing America was created to escape.  wsj.com/opinion/free-e…

We secured $50 billion for rural hospitals. Now we're making sure every dollar of it works to lower your healthcare costs, working directly with Iowa innovators.

If we want to deal the death blow to abortion, the church must speak up. But our voice cannot be only condemnation. It must also be hope. Grace. A cross wide enough for every story. Some thoughts from Lamentations 4 👇 gatewaychurchmonroe.com/pastor-jons-bl…

Proud to be named a "Friend of Agriculture" by the Iowa Farm Bureau for the June 2 primary. Iowa's farm families are the backbone of our state and our economy, and I'll keep fighting for them every day in Congress. Thank you, @IowaFarmBureau

Vice President JD Vance joins us in Iowa tomorrow. Secure your spot ➡️ bit.ly/JDVanceZachNun…

Many thanks to members of the president’s cabinet for allowing me to share what’s on the minds of our ag communities back home, and for prioritizing solutions to these important issues for Iowa farmers.

Iowa just passed a bill requiring in-person dispensing of abortion pills and real screening for coercion. I supported it. This WSJ piece is exactly why: when a pill arrives in the mail, no one in the room is asking the woman if this is actually her choice. wsj.com/opinion/mifepr…

Iowa just passed the Black Market Abortion Pill Bill (HF 2788) — proud to have worked on it. But per WSJ: Trump's FDA still allows mail-order mifepristone, approved a new generic, and has stalled the promised safety review. DOJ is moving to dismiss pro-life states' lawsuits. States can't fight this alone, Mr. President. wsj.com/politics/polic…

Tucked between Jeremiah's oracles of judgment is a five-verse chapter addressed to one tired man. God's word to Baruch is His word to every faithful servant in a hard season: Don't measure your life by the size of the platform. A short devotion ↓ gatewaychurchmonroe.com/pastor-jons-bl…

God’s specific promises to Jeremiah: •Jeremiah 1:8 — “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.” (At his calling.) •Jeremiah 1:18–19 — “I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls… They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the LORD, to deliver you.” •Jeremiah 15:20–21 — “I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the LORD. I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked…” These are personal, covenantal promises of preservation made specifically to Jeremiah — not to prophets generally. So when Ahikam shields him in chapter 26, that’s not luck or political coincidence; it’s God keeping a specific word.

Fair catch — and I think that’s exactly why the writer included it. The elders’ speech almost ends the chapter on a hopeful note. Then Uriah lands like a cold bucket of water: faithfulness doesn’t always get rescued. Ahikam saved Jeremiah. Nobody saved Uriah. It’s the Bible refusing to let us pretend courage is safe. Sobering, not contradictory.

In Jeremiah 26, the priests wanted the prophet executed. The civil officials saved his life. The people closest to sacred things were the ones most deaf to them. A short devotional on what that means for us 👇 gatewaychurchmonroe.com/pastor-jons-bl…

When your candidate loses, does your soul feel the kind of despair that should be reserved for a broken covenant with God? Jeremiah 10 has something to say to us about that. “There is none like You, O LORD.” A new devotional on the idols we carry into politics ↓ gatewaychurchmonroe.com/pastor-jons-bl…

The ancient paths God offered Israel in Jeremiah 6 led straight back to Abraham — a man who heard a voice with no map, packed his bags, and walked anyway. Abram went. His descendants said no. The road is still there. The rest is still offered. Full devotional → gatewaychurchmonroe.com/pastor-jons-bl…

You're not drinking poison — you're just drinking from something that leaks. Jeremiah 2:13 hits different when you realize your cistern isn't evil, it's just broken. Approval. Comfort. Control. They all run dry. Jesus still says: "Come to me and drink." 🔗 New devotion → gatewaychurchmonroe.com/pastor-jons-bl…

Jesus read Isaiah 61 in the synagogue — and stopped mid-sentence. On purpose. That gap is where we live. What do you do inside an unfinished sentence? Full devotional thought below 👇 #Isaiah #MorningCoffee #Faith gatewaychurchmonroe.com/pastor-jons-bl…

You're building something. A career. A reputation. A life. But here's the question God asked an entire civilization — and He's asking you too: Who is it really for? gatewaychurchmonroe.com/pastor-jons-bl…

Wounded to Heal There is a strange paradox woven into the fabric of reality: the deepest healers are almost always the deepest wounded. Henri Nouwen, in his landmark 1972 book The Wounded Healer, argued that a minister — and by extension, any person of faith — is not called to help others in spite of their suffering, but through it. The wound, he wrote, is not something to hide or overcome before you can be useful. It is the very source of your capacity to enter someone else’s pain with authenticity. We don’t trust comfort from someone who has never grieved. But when someone who has walked through the fire sits beside us in ours, something shifts. Their presence alone says: this can be survived. This is the mystery Isaiah 53 is reaching toward. The Servant doesn’t heal people despite his wounds — he heals them through them. “By his stripes we are healed.” The very marks of his suffering become the medicine. As Nouwen would say, the wound is “a source of healing” when it is acknowledged, surrendered, and offered rather than hoarded in self-protection. The question suffering always asks us is: what will you do with me? We can let it make us bitter, closed, and self-protective. But there is another path — to let it break us open toward God and toward others, producing a compassion we never could have manufactured on our own. C.S. Lewis observed in The Problem of Pain that God whispers to us in our pleasures, but shouts in our pain. Suffering gets our attention in ways nothing else can. It strips away the illusions we live by — that we are in control, that life is safe, that we don’t need anyone. And in that stripped-down place, something real can finally grow. This doesn’t mean suffering is good. But it does mean, as Nouwen insisted, that suffering is not wasted — that in the hands of a redemptive God, even the worst things can be turned toward life. Your scars are not just evidence of what you’ve been through. They are, in Nouwen’s vision, credentials — a quiet authority to enter someone else’s darkness and say: I know this place. And there is a way through. “He was wounded for our transgressions… and by his wounds, we are healed.” — Isaiah 53:5 The question is not only what the Servant’s suffering means for us — but what our suffering, offered up in the spirit of Nouwen’s wounded healer, might mean for someone else. For further reflection: Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer (1972) — C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (1940)

Isaiah 41 opens with the great powers of the earth summoned to court — nervous, conferring, encouraging one another, hurriedly bolting their idols down so they don’t topple. They sense something seismic is happening. And they’re right. God is moving. But here’s the humbling truth: they are not the point. Cyrus will conquer nations — but he’s a tool in God’s hand, not the hero of the story. The coastlands tremble — but their trembling is just backdrop. Even Israel, the one God addresses tenderly, is called a worm — small, overlooked, clinging to survival. The main plot is what God himself is doing: redeeming a people, directing history, preparing a way. Nations rise and fall like grass. Empires that look permanent turn out to be props. The devotional sting is personal: we do this too. We look at the powerful movements of our age — political, cultural, economic — and assume that’s the real story. But God is doing something those forces cannot see, using people they would never cast, toward an end they cannot predict. The question Isaiah 41 quietly asks is: do you know whose story you’re actually in? Those who wait on God — even the worms — get rivers in the desert. The great powers just get the bill.

When We Show Off What God Gave Us Hezekiah had just experienced one of the greatest miracles of his life — healed from death, 15 more years promised, enemies defeated. Then visitors came from Babylon, and he showed them everything. Not to glorify God. To impress them. It’s a subtle but deadly shift. The same man who wept before God in prayer now parades his blessings before men for applause. And Isaiah’s response was sobering — what you just showed them? They’ll come back for it. Pride doesn’t just affect us. It opens doors that are very hard to close. The blessings God gives us are meant to be testimonies, not trophies. The question worth asking today: Am I pointing people to God with what He’s given me — or just pointing to myself? “But what have they seen in your house?” — Isaiah 39:4