Full Disclosure: Know Yer Blogger

Just so you know, I'm mostly this:With a strong bit of this mixed in:
Just so that we're all on the same page (and thanks, Daniel, for the inspiration).

Birthday Reflections: Diapers, Donors, and Aging Biblically

Today I turned 36. That's old.

I've had a deep sense of how rich my life is today. That's not always true on my birthday. But today I've been keenly aware of the beauty of my three kids, the joy of being married to a wonderful woman, the richness of wisdom that have been handed to me in the friends and mentors that God has put in my life.

I'm grateful for good work. I'm overwhelmed at the nearly one million dollars donated by hundreds of people over the past fourteen years to allow me to be on campus. Nearly every diaper, every grocery bag, every gallon of gas has been paid for by money that once existed in someone else's bank account before they passed it along to me.

And of course on top of all that, I have a relationship with the Lord that is fresh and particularly tangible recently. I'd give up all else to follow him if he asked it. But he has instead granted me grace upon grace and gift upon gift--tangible expressions of his love are all around me.

So I am getting old. But I remember once my brother talking about his 30th birthday. He commented something to the effect that our culture celebrates youth, but the Scriptures celebrate the wisdom that comes with age. To go against the flow of culture in how we think about age and what's most important is part of the invitation of Christ to follow him.

A good word for me on my 36th birthday. I've had a great one. I hope you've had a great my-birthday today, too.

Deficits

So one funky part about my fall on campus has been a feeling of deficit. Most of my work is relational and most of my days are spent on campus meeting with students. Some students I meet with weekly, others are one-time meetings.

But I've been off campus a ton these last couple months. Between Fall Break, Jury Daddy Duty, being sick and some off-campus meetings, I canceled on one student appointment four weeks in a row. That stinks.

So as I get ready to leave for sabbatical, the chapter organizationally is in a good place, but inter-personally, I feel like I'm in deficit. I feel like I've let people down, that I'm not caught up on people, that I haven't done all that I normally want to do in a normal fall. I'm not necessarily feeling like everyone hates me (I'm in a healthier place than I was in my post last week) but I don't feel like I'm heading into my sabbatical with the Hollywood-perfect ending.

I was praying about this the other day and I came to the realization that deficit is reality. The story of Jesus coming, dying, rising again for me is about my deficit. The deficit is first and foremost with the Lord, true, but it also exists in relation to the people around me, my work, my parenting, my friendships, my relationship to the church and to my neighbors on my street whom I hardly know.

The reality is that I am perpetually in deficit in terms of who I am and who I was created to be. And the reality is that the gospel of grace covers my deficits on campus as much or more so than it covers my deficit before the Lord. My current, obvious deficits are simply a taste of the reality that I am able to cover up through time and life management strategies.

Grace must always cover all of me: all my relationships with students, with my fellow staff, with my wife and kids and parents and friends and church and work. Grace is reality. Either I can try to live a life in the economy of the flesh and strive my whole life to make life and relationships work, or I can die to all of that economy and enter into the economy of the kingdom.

Jesus inaugurated a new math. We're invited to be free from the old exacting calculus whereby we perpetually fall short and into the new way of the Spirit where we humbly acknowledge our need for Someone to perpetually fill all our gaps.

This doesn't propel us into laziness ("shall we continue to sin so that grace abounds? by no means!"), but instead invites us into the freedom of real life, real relationships, real forgiveness, real acceptance...and a much truer picture of who we actually are and what we can actually do.

And all of this in the relentlessly merciful and loving context of a larger God-story that shapes and changes everything: "Behold, I am making all things new!"

Even my deficits.

Going Public with My Big News

I love my job. One of the things that I really like about it is not only do I get to hang out with some amazing people, I also have an organization that is genuinely for me, not just out to get what they can out of me.

InterVarsity has a policy that after you've been on staff for seven years, you are eligible for a sabbatical. This is year thirteen for me.

So I'm taking a sabbatical. I start next week. I'll be off campus for four months. November 18th to March 16th.

If you're a student or if you've been following along with me this semester, you know that it's been a really tough semester for us. But even before things were rocky, I was feeling off. My energy level felt low, things that normally energize me didn't.

I hit a mini-wall at the start of the year. It's not been terrible, I could play through it. But I want to pay attention to the warning signs my body and soul are giving me. Playing through too many of those signs is how religious professionals end up on the front page of the newspaper.

The dates are wonderful. Next week my students have their last full week of classes. Then a half week before Thanksgiving, then two days, then exams, then home for Christmas. It'll be January 15ht before anyone realizes that I'm gone.

I also like that I come back with about six weeks left. I get to say good-bye to the seniors who were freshmen my first year back at UNC. I get to go to Rockbridge at the end of the school year.

I also like that the past three weeks or so have been really good on campus. We're in a stable place as a chapter. I don't feel like I'm bailing on a ship that's going down. And my two co-staff are wonderful. They have blessed me to leave and things will run swimmingly whilst I'm gone. I'm very grateful for them.

What does one do whilst one is on sabbatical? I'm not entirely sure yet. Here's what I do know: my first week I'll take a nap every day and spend at least two or three hours in a Starbucks with Jesus. I've got a lot of good books that I want to read. I look forward to good time with the wife and kids. I want to spend some time reflecting on the past 12 and a half years, looking for the patterns or the consistent opportunities or consistent challenges that I've been too busy to notice. I hope to do some consistent exercise.

And I want to watch egregious amounts of college football during Bowl season.

Those sound like lofty enough goals, don't they?