Hunting

On Monday I spent approximately 5 hours in the woods hunting deer. For those of you who don't know about deer hunting, it's not really what you think. You sit in a stand and wait for deer to walk by - you aren't really walking through the woods looking for deer as the name seems to indicate.

I'll be honest with you - most of the time deer hunting is pretty boring. You sit there for hours, usually you are quite cold, and 99.9 percent of the time nothing is happening. But then there is that .10 of time (or is it .01?) when you hear a twig snap in the woods nearby, or you sense movement in the brush, or you actually see a deer. Suddenly your heart starts racing, and the drudgery of waiting is quickly forgotten.

This morning's hunt found me on "Steve's Stand," a stand named after me by my family down here because I am the one who hunts in the stand the most. This morning was a beautiful, cold, crisp morning after two straight days of rain. I was in my stand before dawn, and as the sun slowly began to rise, the trees and ground all around my stand were practically covered with birds of every type. There were sparrows, mockingbirds, blue jays, robins, cardinals, doves, crows, chickadees, brown thrashers, rufous-sided towhees and a few species I could not identify. The birds don't realize I'm in the stand, so some of them fly up and actually sit on the stand with me - it's so cool. It makes me feel very close to creation, and to God.

By the end of the day I still had not seen any deer, but I'll be right back out there in the morning. You never know; tomorrow might be the day a "big'un" walks by. I hope to have a more exciting report tomorrow.... until then, good-night.

Sunday Morning

Today is Sunday morning and it feels weird not to be responsible for a worship service somewhere. Actually I wasn't responsible last week at our farewell service at NewSong - but it really feels weird today. I am in another state at the present moment - my "adopted" home state of Mississippi. I'm about to go to a small country Baptist church - one where my Dad was a member when he was a young man. In fact, there is a family legend that says that Dad was the song-leader at this church many years ago. I would have loved to have seen that.

The good thing is - God will meet me at that church this morning. He'll meet folks in churches all over the planet today; under tall banyan trees in Africa, in frozen villages in northern climes, in major cities, in secret, hidden-away rooms in countries where Christianity is outlawed, and in little brick or frame country churches, complete with a cemetery just outside the door like the church I'm about to go to this morning. After all, that's why I'm going to church this morning - to meet with God.

I just finished reading the story of Jacob in Genesis. Jacob had a very famous meeting with God and so he set up a stone and named the place Bethel, "House of God," because, as he said, "Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place" (see Gen. 28:11-19).

The Psalm for the day is Psalm 15, where the Psalmist asks, "Who LORD, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill?" and then he (David) goes on to answer the question...

"He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman, who despises a vile man but honors those who fear the LORD, who keeps his oath even when it hurts, who lends his money without usury and does not accept a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken."

That's not a bad code for living.

Help me, Father, to meet you at "your house" today, and to begin living the way David spoke of ... even if just for today. Amen

Loose Ends

Well... the feeling of being at "loose ends" has arrived. I feel disconnected, spaced out, unneeded and, well, lost. I'm pretty sure this has to do with a couple of issues I mentioned in a recent post: first, my inordinate need for approval - my "need to be needed" and second, my continual efforts at earning God's grace by "doing" instead of just resting in Him. I am a chronic list-maker and a doer and when you go from 1000 mph to zero, it's frightening and more than a little disconcerting.

While journaling this morning I mused about how many times in the recent past I have said, "If only I had the time...." But now that I "have the time" I feel like a limbless spider that has no way to move about - I'm just bumping around, spinning, going nowhere.

I'm not surprised, of course, at least I know myself that well. I guess what I am surprised about is how quickly this feeling overtook me. I had planned to get away on a trip beginning yesterday, which would have helped, but that trip has apparently fallen through. I wonder, is this God's way of making me sit still and just be present in the moment? Or are there more sinister forces at work?

I dunno... we will see, I suppose. For now I've got clothes to do, then I'm going to Wal-Mart for groceries, then I've got to wash the Trailblazer, and then there's cooking to do for tonight...

Oh well, maybe some day I will learn to "Be still, and know that I am God" - Psalms 46:10

Pray with Us

Even though absolutely no one in the world knows this blog exists at the present moment, I know it will soon be discovered by someone. Knowing this I ask you to take a moment to pray with me for Donna's and my future.

Over the next few weeks we will be praying about the callings God is stirring in us. We want more than anything to discern what we are most passionate about, and then to follow that calling. Please join us in prayer that God would make that crystal clear in our heart of hearts.

What an exciting adventure we are embarking on together!

About the Name

You may be wondering why I chose the name, "All the Good" for my new blog. The title comes from one of my spiritual mentors, John Wesley who once said,

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.

Now that I am free of the day-to-day obligations of a parish minister, it is my desire to be used of God any way I can. Like Paul I desire to be "poured out" (Phil. 2:17) as a "living sacrifice" (Rom. 12:1) for God.

I intend to take Wesley's motto of conduct above, as my own. Father, in your mercy help me.

My New Blog

Hello World,

Welcome to my new blog, which takes the place of my old blog, Life's Mirror. If I can figure out how to import those posts, I will, but in the event I cannot, that's okay too.

There have been significant changes in my life. On January 2, 2010 I resigned from a ten-year pastorate, a church I founded. I had a dream that I would be able to stay at that church forever; that I would be able to grow and change along with it as the years went by. But that was not the case. I simply do not possess the pastoral skills needed at this particular time in the life of that congregation, despite my deep heart-felt desire to lead it until I retire.

I am very grateful for ten years of productive ministry there, but now God is calling me to something else. I do not know what that something else is yet. I just know it is time for me to leave. In that regard I feel a bit like Abraham, whom God told to pack up and get moving. Abraham didn't know where he was going, or how long he would be gone, or what he would find when he got wherever it was he was supposed to go. He simply knew it was time to go and so he went and that's pretty much how it went down.

I realize now that I had created a kind of safe-haven at the church I founded where I was comfortable. To be perfectly honest, most of what I was doing there could be done pretty much without God's help. Nothing supernatural happened. There was nothing radical or dangerous or different about what we were doing or the way we were living. I had sold my soul for a steady paycheck. I had turned my calling into a career. Meanwhile, though I consistently preached God's grace to others, I was still desperately trying to earn God's love myself. And even that was not enough. I needed the approval of others. This aspect of my self-understanding came to light during a particularly painful episode last summer when we made some difficult, though I believe, God-inspired decisions that caused several families to leave the church. As I watched them leave I came to realize just how dependent I am upon the approval of others despite my claims to the contrary. I have an unhealthy desire to be well thought-of and respected by others.

In the end I was doing little more than playing religious games and "doing church" and was totally missing out on the Kingdom of God. All my cute illustrations and snazzy PowerPoints and interesting anecdotes are a poor substitute for the amazing love and pure gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is time to stop walking in the strength of my own flesh and to begin walking in the power of God's Spirit. It's not about how competent I am as a man, or a husband or father, or a pastor. It's all about how much I am loved by my Creator. It's time to get to know Him better. It's time to really trust him; and to live like I do. Let the journey begin.

Christmas Movies

Christmas would not be complete at the Jackson manse without a few “Christmas movie nights” where we change into our most comfortable clothes and settle down to watch Christmas movies together. Our three favorites are White Christmas, Christmas Vacation, and Home Alone. Like all good movies, these films evoke laughter as well as tears as we watch them. They also do something else – they remind us of deeper truths.

White Christmas was mainly written as a vehicle to accommodate Irving Berlin’s song by the same title. And yet, as we watch the story unfold with its forgotten General, broken dreams, and balmy temperatures in Pine Tree, Vermont at Christmas – we are reminded that while things have been, and currently are rough – better days are coming. It won’t always be like this. One day by the grace of God what has been lost will be restored. In fact, before God is finished, “we will be changed,” the Bible says. What we’re experiencing now is not how it will always be. Alzheimer’s will not have the last word. Cancer cannot win in the end. Brokenness will be restored, and sin defeated. The good guy will get the girl, the old General will be remembered, and the snow will come. In the memorable finale to this movie, General Waverly is again honored by his troops, Bob and Betty declare their love, and the background of the set is removed to show the falling snow. Everyone raises a glass, toasting as they sing, "May your days be merry and bright; and may all your Christmases be white."

The star of Christmas Vacation, of course, is none other than Clark W. Griswold. All Griswold wants is to give his family “the most fun-filled old-fashioned family Christmas ever." But everything goes wrong. First Clark can’t get the Christmas lights to come on; then Cousin Eddie shows up. Next the turkey explodes and Uncle Louis burns down the tree. To cap things off, Clark discovers that his Christmas bonus consists of an enrollment into the Jelly of the Month club. The classic line in this movie, for me anyway, is when Clark’s wife Ellen tells her daughter to stop complaining: “It’s Christmas Audrey…we’re all miserable.” In the end the Griswolds survive a holiday season that would try Job's patience, but it’s one that many of us can relate to. And yet Clark's faith never falters through it all. This avowed family man continues to count his blessings and in the end, all is well. This movie reminds us that even though our families often drive us nuts, there are few things in life that are more important than those whom God has put us together with. After all, the first Christmas was about a family too: Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. This Christmas as you gather with your family, lighten up; laugh a little. Be present in the moment.

Home Alone is about an 8 year-old boy named Kevin McCallister who gets accidentally left at home when his family forgets him on a Christmas vacation they take. At first Kevin is thrilled to have full run of the house. He eats forbidden junk food, watches forbidden movies, sleeps wherever he wants for as long as he wants to, and even raids his older brother’s room. But after a conversation with an elderly neighbor who is estranged from his family, Kevin realizes how lonely he really is. Being alone isn’t nearly as wonderful as he thought it would be. This movie reminds us how we often think we’d be happier if we didn’t have to answer to God – if we could do whatever we want to do. For a while we would probably revel in our newfound freedom. But in time we would begin to feel the emptiness and loneliness that comes from being isolated and at odds with God. Like Kevin, we’d eventually get homesick, even though we were still at home. Christmas is about Immanuel – “God with us.” We might think we’d like it better without his watchful eye upon us, but we really wouldn’t. The wonderful news of Christmas is that we haven’t been forgotten. We are not abandoned. We will never be “home alone” because God is with us forever.