From my first xanga post during finals week of my sophomore year at Strake Jesuit, to my secret xanga accounts which were named "Misjudged1" and "Unforeseen Facade" (how emo right), to my first post on this site in the Moody Library basement towards the end of my freshman year at Baylor, all the way to a current day house in Rowland Heights, California, blogging has been pretty consistent for some of the most formative years of my life.
Usually I found myself basically debriefing a web of thoughts at the end of my days for each of those stages of my life. When 2am clocked around and my parents or roommates went to sleep, then came a sense of "freedom" where it was just me and God talking it out (or me just venting to Him, the reader, or myself) ... I can remember very important, transforming parts of my life and locations where I sat to blog what I was seeing, learning, and loving. I kind of loved blogging. It has an intimate attachment for me because sometimes it felt like blogger Jon really was the "real me" ... or as "real" as it could get.
On a side note, it helped me articulate my thoughts a ton.
I always have written with a semi-diary-esque tone ... knowing that a couple of readers might pop in and out and it's afforded me a level of honesty that I was never afraid to embrace for whomever might read it. In some ways I wanted to bless whomever might read it. In some ways it's given my writing a "voice" but as I've began to think about it, over the past couple of years, something's felt missing and I couldn't pinpoint what it was.
I think the same thing could be said about my twitter, which started out as not publicized at all with only like four followers. There was something about the semi-privacy of that account that made it more meaningful for me.
And I guess the solution could be just to crack down and make everything private but I don't know that that's the right course of action to take. I do want to help and encourage whoever might read what I want to post. But I guess the main reason I say all this is because the thing that's bugged me is getting used to being a "public" person. Of course everyone on social media is as public as they want to be, but even now as a youth pastor, the simple things I used to encourage ministry leaders in college is something I struggle with: Letting those you shepherd in on your life, letting them even see your sin, your junk, your not-together-ness. I don't know that I actually feel uncomfortable doing this, but I'm caught in a tension of being new to ministry where I'm supposed to know what I'm doing and at the same time being honest with the fact that I don't most of the time.
Because as it is now, I feel like I'm at the raw-est state I could be. Where I'm learning on the go all the time, making plenty of mistakes, and trying to catch enough of them to grow for the future. I tell people that I feel like since I've moved out here, I've been at my "C game" ... meaning everything I do I feel like I used to do better before ... or at least with more genuine passion, faith, expectation ... maybe even throw in "sincerity." And as I keep trucking through school and serving at the church, it feels like I'm just trying to keep up with what God's trying to teach me. Heh, I kind of want to correct/revise some of my word choice here because I feel like if you read it, you can sense my insecurity/unbelief.
All that to say, for a while I feel like I've supposed to have been a certain guy on par with a certain self-inflicted, extra-biblical standard. I got more than a fair share of encouragement that I've battled not to let myself get puffed up but maybe I bought into it. And I know that God specifically, deliberately, and convincingly brought me out here for my own sanctification. He's exposed a lot and it's really uncomfortable sometimes to see how many insecurities I have. Goodness. And so, all that to say/vent ... I'm kind of a mess in a way right now. And I guess this past year is God's teaching me that, as well as that being okay. The good news of the gospel that He's showing me is that even in all this, He's not only present, but He's drawn near. In a weird tension of feeling like God is distant, in a way I can't deny how near He actually is. I feel I've forgotten the cross in my functional theology ... but it's that act in history that proves God is for me, a guy full of sin and insecurity, for some ridiculous reason, entrusted to tend a flock of kids in some of the most formative years of their lives.
Heh, I'm not masochistic but somewhere deep down, I'm liking this journey He has me on. As painful as it has been, I feel that it evidences His unrelenting pursuit of me. The real me. Raw, full of holes.
"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." -Psalm 51:17
