The Person I Want To Be

I was walking across campus, my ear throbbing from an infection, my nose dripping. I had just stayed up til midnight the night before working on papers, trying desperately to catch up on things I had let slide. In all fairness, the majority of the day was spent staring at a blank page or trying to find anything to distract myself. And now I was walking like a zombie, loaded up on NyQuil, not quite fully present, but not absent either.

That’s when I ran into PJ. PJ and I had a class together first quarter. She had struggled to adjust to seminary life and I had attended a study session with her where I shared a lot of the study tips that I learned in undergrad. Concepts about canon, and infallibility, and how faith and Bible study must build each other up, but one of the most important lessons was learning what you don’t need to read. She would spend the day in class, go to work after, come home to her young son, not to mention whatever other church work she was volunteering for, and after all of that she would spend hours reading over the articles and books that were assigned for class. The advice I gave was apparently profound, but at the time I thought it was just a clever form of laziness. I said, “don’t do all the reading.” It’s simple. If you’ve got that much on your plate, you need to recognize the bare minimum that you can get away with in these classes and that’s what you do. At least until you can find a more permanent solution.

When I saw PJ she asked “how has your quarter been?” And I hesitantly shared that I had been phoning it in all quarter, struggling to balance my life, my work, my school, and my sanity. She volleyed the same advice I had given her in the Fall. She reminded me about priorities and about grace, and in that moment I was reminded for the millionth time that the Gospel is true, that God loves me, and that I can’t earn His grace.

I’ve been given life, and life abundantly, a life so full of blessings and gifts that I simply can’t hold them all, and they overflow. But I’m in the weird-happy of trying to keep everything inside, rather than letting the abundance pour over me.

I want to be that person. I want to be the person who is acutely aware of the amazingness of each breath. I want to be the person who always puts God first. The person who always prioritizes my family. I want to dedicate my mind to studying the Scriptures, and dedicate my body to living them out. I want so badly to be this person.

Happy Five Months, Baby Boy.

Dear Emmett,

You are five months old today. You weigh more than double your birth weight. You have grown so big, so fast! I look at you now and forget what it was like to have a new born. Your old clothes seem comically small, like they are for a doll. I can't believe that some of the outfits you wear are size 6-9 months! (It's because you're so tall, of course). You can do so much these days! You laugh and smile almost on demand, you recognize your name, you know your Mommy and Daddy. You are so smart already!

The Buried Things

Imagine one of those dramatic scenes where the shovel breaks the dirt, and it is solemnly brought over a hole in the ground. The dirt falls across… something.

You seldom see the body, but you know it’s there. In your head there is something in that grave. There is something getting buried, and there is a moment of tension as you let go of whatever just happened and recognize that for whatever is in that grave- this is the end. And you let it go.

You bury the hatchet. You put things in the past. You let it die. And you can grieve, and you can move on, but nothing will be how it was. This is what it means to bury things. Dead means done, done means not coming back. Freedom, and release, and sorrow, and loss, all in one moment.

Do you have things in your life, that no matter how you grieve them and process them they always seem to come back? I’ve heard countless sermons about letting go, forgiveness, moving on, letting the past be the past. And the sheer number of object lessons attached to those sermons is daunting. The price is paid, a dog doesn't return to its vomit, Lot’s wife “looked back” and you saw what happened to her. I’ve held trinkets in my pocket to remind me that I’ve forgiven people, I’ve carried around heavy luggage, I’ve written things down and nailed them on crosses, set them on fire, dyed them in red coloring, bleached them white.

And yet I was sitting in counseling today, my foot tapping like crazy as I anxiously recalled that one thing that just wouldn’t die.

This is the part of every post where I think to myself, “I wish I could just end it here. I’m not sure I have any good advice to give, and I’m not sure I’m done wrestling with this thing, so let’s just drop the mic and walk away.” But I can’t. Cause this is one of those things that just.
won’t.
die.

And I’m torn, because I celebrate Resurrection Sunday. I think Christ’s resurrection from the grave is the single most important event in the history of humanity.

But I’m also a fan of The Walking Dead. I imagine something rising from the grave as a cold, decomposing horror, that chases me without relent.

So, I have two choices: zombie, or exalted.

Two Truths and a Lie

I am unhealthy. -Truth

I go out of my way to adopt healthy behaviors. -Truth

I am fat. - Lie

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I agree with the Democratic party. -Truth

I agree with the Republican party. -Truth

I am a Republican or Democrat. -Lie

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Today is a good day. -Truth

Today is a bad day. -Truth

How I feel about Today matters. -Lie

---

I am right. -Truth

I am wrong. -Truth

I define right and wrong. -Lie


You’re familiar with the game, right? I come up with two things that are true about myself, and then one lie, and you have to guess the lie. I always hated this game, because you always have someone who just cannot come up with anything, and they sit there trying to figure out one thing that is true about themselves and they just can’t.

Then there are the people who you know are lying about all three things, or are at least lying through omission. Like, “oh I totally went to prom with a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model,” which is true, but it’s only half true. They went to prom with someone who was featured in the background of a shot of as an extra, but since they were paid they were technically a Sports Illustrated model, and they were technically wearing a swimsuit, so… truth? (That would still be impressive…) And there are the people who just tell whatever story they can think of to get attention, and it may be true, and really heart breaking, but they kind of forgot this is just a game. Like, “I was adopted from a third world country, and still wake up in the middle of the night crying from memories of my family.” And everyone is just sitting there like, “God, I hope that’s not true, but also- this is a game right? Like, this isn’t counseling?” We’re supposed to say fun things, like- my dog’s name was McPoops cause everytime he ate McDonald’s he would diarrhea on the carpet. I’m not supposed to then finish that story with- “so we put him down, and my parent’s didn’t tell me until I got home from school, and I failed geometry that year because I was so depressed, but no one ever understood why I didn’t do my work, so my parents thought I was stupid and I had to get a tutor, and ever since then I’ve felt like my parent’s think I’m stupid.” Cause that would be super sad, right? (Also, stop feeding McDonald’s to dogs.)

But the point is, that game should be called “Two half truths, and something you wish were true.” Because functionally that is a more accurate title.

We all have a tendency to do that, don’t we?

The Future American Church - or How to Stop Sending and Start Receiving

There are two things I desperately want to write about, and they may not seem to be connected but they really are - promise.

First, Christian Sci-Fi isn’t much of “a thing”.

Christian culture seems to shy away from forecasting future events, unless that forecast ultimately consists of Christ returning and everything else being pointless. The church seems far more concerned with eschatology, and far less concerned with futurology. But the generation coming up in the Western World seems to have rejected the fairy-tales of the Left Behind era, in favor of dreams of self-driving cars, an internet of things, and the implications of 3D printing (or at least I have). For years now this has been perceived as a departure away from Christianity and toward the secular, but I would disagree.

To those Christians who still drive cars with faded NOTW stickers, I share this with you:

Emmett...Ode to an Easy Baby

Dearest Emmett,

Thank you. I can't say thank you enough for what an amazing baby you are. Ever since you were born, you have given me at least 7 hours of sleep a night. Granted, for most of those nights those 7 hours were split into 2-3 chunks, but that's nothing to scoff at! You have been so generous to grant me so much rest and I thank you profusely.

Also, I gotta say, you're not much of a crier. You cry, but only when you need something specific. And it's always either a burp, hunger, or a poop that you're working out. And once in a while you're a little overstimulated. But really, that's it! You also tend to fuss for a while before the actual crying starts, which lets me try to figure out what it is you need before you have actual baby tears running down your face. Those tears are heartbreaking, baby. Also (and you get this from me) you turn beet red. Which is cute, except for the screaming and sweating. Which, again, happens so rarely that I can't even start to complain!

Have You Heard the News? (Everyone’s Talking) Life is Good, cause...

So, the word is out. And it’s true, I’m a pastor again. And there are so many stories I want to share about how it all happened, and what happened, and why it happened… ya know, the happenings, but I am finishing up my finals for the Winter Quarter at Fuller, so I’ll keep this post brief (I just finished the post, and realized it’s not brief at all… sorry).

Back when I got ordained I got a nice fancy piece of paper that said “Alex Jackson is hereby ordained as a Minister of the Gospel”, one of the ladies at the church even took time to decorate it with glitter markers so you knew it was really extra special. When you go through an ordination process it requires that you really consider what God has called you to do, and when I was ordained I knew that it wasn’t just for one church, and it wasn’t just as a Youth Pastor, it was forever. From that day on I was a Minister of the Gospel, no matter the circumstances. It was a call I received from God, and you can’t just be un-called. It’s not like Jonah was chilling in the whale thinking “great! I totally got out of that mess! Now I’ll never have to go to Nineveh.” No, it was more like “well… I guess God does get what He wants.”

But let me tell ya, these last few months tested that to my very core. As I attended Fuller I kept on having to write about my calling and where God wanted me, all the while I was floating around from different jobs, learning how to be a dad, and not know what the future would look like.