Today is my 26th birthday, and I’m vowing to celebrate every single day…whether that means giant victories or random holidays!! I’m not in it alone…follow our journey here:
It is 4:30 am, and I’m wide awake. Sometimes, my mind starts thinking, and I just can’t get it to shut off. So, here I am. At pipjackson.wordpress.com. It’s kind of like a street address, don’t you think? Just hanging out here at the blog. I know most of my latest posts have began with my apologies for not blogging lately. So I’m not going to apologize this time..to you or the blog. I just haven’t wanted to blog for the past 6 months. No desire to really.
Wth that said, I woke up just a few minutes ago with a bunch of thoughts. They were thoughts about grace, trust, friendship, and hospitality…but mostly just about grace. In reality, you can’t go much further with the other three without grace. I can’t get it out of my head. It’s huge!
Zechariah 12:10
Him Whom They Have Pierced
“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.
John 1:14And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:16
And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.
These were the first 3 verses that came up when I looked up verses about grace. I have been given grace upon grace…Jesus is the fullness of grace and truth. It’s not lacking. It’s not given to me with boundaries or stipulations. It’s not given to me so that I could be manipulated. It’s just given to me and overwhelmingly so.
Whoa! Hold up. Does that make any logical sense?! 1. No, because I don’t deserve that kind of gift. and 2. I’m definitely not the best steward of that gift. But God gives it still…grace upon grace. That is beautiful. And with that comes huge responsibility.
I mean, let’s look at Paul. It seems as though he understood the weight of grace. His letters all start with a phrase like…Hey Thessalonians, Grace to you…What’s up, Corith? Grace to you. and peace from God. Hey, Galations. Grace to you. (Pip’s paraphrase, of course…maybe I should come out with a PSV-Pip’s Standard Version…jk) It seems before he even said what he needed to say, he offered grace first. I’m going to take a chance and say it was because he knew how much he needed grace himself.
I know God has entrusted me to be a good steward of His grace. I also know that I fail at that A LOT, but I want to do a better job of it. As the church, it may be our single greatest responsibility. I’m not saying we should brush things under the rug like that heaping pile of metaphoric dirt doesn’t exist. I just know that I have been given grace, and therefore, I must offer it, too. Before I practice hospitality, before I clean the bathrooms, before I speak to anyone, before I do anything that could involve a wrong motive, before I listen…so basically all the time.
Whew! It’s a good thing there’s grace to cover when I mess that one up 🙂
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This is this year’s promo video for Daraja. LOVE LOVE JOY LOVE JOY JOY JOY. Can’t wait to see what happens when they grace Arkansas and Missouri with their beautiful little presence. Stinkin love these wewes.
Welp, it’s just me and Oliver hanging out on the couch together (For those of you who don’t know Oliver, he’s Cassie’s yorkie dog). Today, I have no where to sub, so I’m going to spend the day getting some things done and putting my resume together. On days like today, it’s hard to see what God is up to, but the truth is that He’s got this rockin’ awesome plan to bring himself glory and to draw his people to himself. I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that I’m a part of this, but only by His grace.
So here’s what’s up with me:
While I was on tour, God put in my heart a desire to see the kids of our nation rise up, love Jesus, and be Godly leaders in every aspect of their lives. I’m not sure if this came about after seeing the Daraja kids transform so quickly when they came to know Christ, but I know it had something to do with it. These kids weren’t just here to sing in a choir in the U.S., they lived the gospel.
Since I’ve been home, this desire has not gone away. In fact, everyday it becomes a little stronger. I’m not exactly sure what this looks like. There’s a tiny tip of the iceberg of a vision He has given that makes me very curious. He keeps showing me that He has given the same vision to others. He’s connecting little details together. It may not look exactly the same to everyone, but the principle of it is the same. I know God is stirring in the hearts of His people to see a change. To see the U.S. and the world raise up a Godly generation of leaders. To get away from materialism and entitlement. For kids to see Jesus for who He really is, and for Him to become the center of their lives. To see kids serving one another.
A leadership program. Godly relationships between kids of different countries and backgrounds. Worship. These are things that I’m praying for and desire to see happen. For right now, I’m just resting in His grace and His goodness. He is so good, all the time. And we are completely unworthy of it all.
Here’s the deal: I can’t do this out of my own strength. I know that. Are you kidding?! I’m constantly asking, “Lord, how? HOW? How do I lead your people? Your kiddos? Where will every resource come from?” It will be by the overwhelming grace of Jesus that He does this thing. No matter how He shapes the vision, we will see that He is faithful and that His Spirit has guided us. For now, I’m subbing in schools in the area.
“And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Luke 1:45
What you can pray for:
Wisdom. That we listen to His voice. Orphans. Daraja-past present future. King’s Ranch in Jonesboro. Everyone who is being led to lead and raise up leaders from our youth.
Thanks for the prayers!
I love this one. Gloria, Veronica, and Josephine are so funny!!! Miss them so much.
Peter and Naomi carving pumpkins on Halloween at Journey Church, Charlotte, NC.
The kids practicing Nafsi yangu for the first time. “My soul longs for you Lord..” accompanied by Dan on the keys and CJ on the guitar.
You’ve met David before. You can’t really see it in the video, but David is wearing a cupcake wrapper on his head…and it strangely resembles a yamica. Add star glasses to that and a rockin’ awesome chicken walk, and you’ve got one hilarious memory.
Let’s just be real for a sec. So, I thought I was ok coming back from Daraja. I thought the whole mourning period was over after a couple of weeks, and I could just go back to normal life. Yes, I know that my Daraja family is not dead. But most of them are halfway around the world, and the others are “back to normal.” Well, that’s what I thought anyways. But apparently, it doesn’t work like that. Because today, and yesterday, and the day before that…I’ve missed my Daraja family more than ever. I just miss them more everyday. I really hate it. I hate that I can’t kiss the little girls and sing to them before bed. I hate that my heart is completely tied to this ministry and I’m not applying this year. I hate that God bonded the hearts of the team together so much, and yet I can’t go to sleep knowing I get to see them after breakfast in the morning. And honestly, I didn’t realize I would hate it this much. I don’t say this to make you think I don’t love being home. I’ve missed it a lot while I was gone, and I’m thankful for my friends and family who are putting up with my endless stories and mood swings 🙂 But if I acted as if i wasn’t affected at all by the absence of Daraja tangibly in my life, I would be living a lie…or at least ommiting that I don’t really have it all together.
Now that that’s out of the way:
You know, I haven’t blogged since I’ve come back. I’m still processing everything. Turns out, I’ve learned a lot more than I thougtht I did. A month after coming home, Daraja is still teaching me lessons. When I came home, I was on this strange high. It wasn’t like experiencing something at Passion or at camp, it was like…a love hangover. That’s really the only way I know how to describe how I felt. It was the best feeling in the world really. Sure, I missed the family, but I had missed everyone at home, too. So, reunions are great. And I was coming home from completely pouring out more love than I could do by myself and from being drowned in love from Daraja. So that lasted about 4 days.
I hit the bottom pretty hard after that. Not in a I’m-depressed-sort-of-way, but in a I’m spiritually dry way. In a Where’s-the-love? way. In a I’ve-never-felt-more-attacked-in-my-life sort of way. Whoa. Who knew that was coming? I really didn’t understand it at all. So I started replaying everyday in my head. What was different? I was still praying. Still in the Word. Still connected to the family. Still in a rockin’ awesome community known as citychurch!! The one thing that was different? My Worship. Praising Jesus everyday. Declaring that He is good. everyday.
When I started thinking about it, it wasn’t the hugs from the cutest kids you’ve ever seen in your life that made tour so sweet. What kept me going on tour was Jesus. Concerts averaged1 every 2-3 days. Selfless worship. Spirit-led worship. But even more than that, tour somehow encouraged us into a lifestyle that was worship. Even when we were tired and when we fell short and when we were struggling with things we had no idea was in us. God is Good All The Time. All The Time God Is Good. It’s what kept me going. Even knowing that I couldn’t go on in my own strength, I knew He was still worthy of all the praise. I guess I’ve always known that, but what made it so different was that, my praise was all about Him, and not what I could get it out of it. (ouch-honesty hurts) I hate that it took me so long to realize that. It wasn’t about if I felt like worshipping or not. It also wasn’t about me feeling like doing some other random task or not. It was just about God being Good. All. The. Time. John Piper said it great the other night. “Self can never satisfy a heart made for God.” Wow. So much truth. Meg would say that she truely found her self after losing it completely.
Fast forward…I’m standing on a solid-freaking-rock. And His name is Jesus. I’m trying my best to make much of His name everyday, and it feels absolutely amazing. I’m not talking about doing a 60 min. dance and sing your heart out for the Lord session everyday (although I’m not ruling that out), I’m just living to make much of His Name. That truely is my joy. He is worthy. He is good. He loves me though I’m completely undeserving. He wants all my delight and all of my praise. Being away from Daraja is still hard. Maybe God has Daraja in my future…maybe he doesn’t. But I do know that Jesus is in my forever future. And that is all I need to know right now.
Well...here we are. 