To celebrate our ten year anniversary, we are inviting back former writers back to tpc in order to hear what they’ve been thinking about since leaving the post calvin. Today, please welcome back Griffin Paul Jackson. Griffin (’11) lives in Chicago with his wife and three kids. He’s the editor for an economics firm and writes stories for fun. Read him here: griffinpauljackson.com.
Someone asked St. Anthony, “What must one do to please God?”
Anthony said, “Whoever you may be, always have God before your eyes; whatever you do, do it according to the testimony of the holy scriptures; in whatever place you live, do not easily leave it. Keep these three precepts and you will be saved.”
The old monk calls out three qualities of Jesus followers. I read them as 1) intimacy with God, 2) obedience, and 3) a willingness to stay, to persevere, to live where God has placed you.
It’s the third point that’s been ringing in my ears for years.
“In whatever place you live, do not easily leave it.”
Since I left Calvin in 2011, I’ve wrestled with what I’ve come to think of as the spiritual discipline of “staying.” I live in Chicago now. It’s a great city. And noisy and expensive. Everywhere I plant roots—in the office, at church, at the park, at my kids’ school—I hear talk about “transience.” People move all the time. For all the obvious reasons. More space and better schools in the suburbs. More fun in New York and Los Angeles. Better weather down south. Better nature out west.
Real talk: it feels so easy to leave.
But I want to live well. I want to please God. I want to not leave easy.
Surely Anthony doesn’t mean a person must live in their hometown all their life. Jesus himself was an itinerant rabbi. And certainly Anthony is not saying salvation depends on one’s willingness to remain in a geographic sense.
But just as surely, Anthony is onto something. I think what he’s onto is a deep commitment, rootedness, faithfulness to a community; a perseverance in the providence of God, wherever he has you; and contentment in all circumstances, come what may.
Man, I want that.
I want to be committed to community.
In a culture of radical individualism and unlimited opportunity, I want to value place—or, rather, the people in a place—enough to sacrifice my own desires and comforts.
Here in Chicago, you slide in for grad school and to kickstart your career, then you U-Haul to the suburbs or somewhere cooler. Five years ago, all my friends were moving to Seattle and Denver. Now they’re moving to Atlanta and Chattanooga and Houston. Churches in the city build entire models of ministry around this constant coming and going. I get it. I feel it. There is nothing in God’s Word that says, “You must stay where you are forever.” But there is something biblical and beautiful about commitment to community that is not quickly discarded when a promotion lures or a warmer climate beckons. If we are to be disciples and make disciples in a community, we must be rooted in it, invested in it, committed to it.
Even when the Jews longed to be in Jerusalem, God instructed them to be committed to Babylon. Jeremiah wrote, “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
I want to persevere in God’s providence.
I don’t believe that wherever I am is where I’m meant to be. Sometimes we really should move on quickly. But I can’t help sensing God has called me to this place and community. So I can’t help believing I need to trust that call over my desire for something else.
I feel such a temptation to seek what I think I can provide for myself and my family: a new job, a new home, a new church. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last ten years, it’s that life goes better when I listen to what God tells me over what I tell myself.
Instead of being led this way and that by my own whims and wishes, I want to be a person who trusts God’s providence. And remains in it. I want to be a person for whom God’s way is always more home than wherever else I want to be.
I want to be content in all circumstances.
As I’ve watched so many friends move on, I don’t blame them. Truly, there’s no shade. For most of them, it makes sense—natural sense but also spiritual sense. But I’m also not stupid. I know one of the main reasons some leave—and one of the main reasons I sometimes think to leave—is because we’re not content. The next, the better, the bigger, the different looks pretty good.
Yet I’m trying to remember that my contentment isn’t based on a place. It’s based on God being near (Philippians 4:11-13). This isn’t me making an excuse to be complacent. It’s me fighting to be actually satisfied, in the deep places, no matter what is going on around me.
I recently read what happened when Jesus healed the demon-possessed man in the Gerasenes. The dude pleaded to go with Jesus. But Jesus had other plans. “As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, ‘Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.’ So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.”
Seems like a pretty good thought that this guy wanted to leave his home to follow Jesus. But Jesus had a better plan—to stay. To remain. To embody the good news where he was, not where he wanted to be.
I think one day God will call my family to move, but never to be flaky. I think he’ll lead us from one community to another, but those moves will be based in his will, not my volatility. Anthony told me not to be restless, but to be rooted. God told me to have staying power. I want to treat the here and now—this crazy, noisy, beautiful city—not as a chore, but as a gift. As my spiritual discipline unto God.
If you are a former writer and interested in contributing this year, email info@thepostcalvin.com
After a few years spent correcting grammatical errors and writing subtle, clever headlines in a Chicago newsroom, Griffin Paul Jackson (’11) now does aid work with refugees in Lebanon. He writes about that, God, and, when the muse descends, Icelandic sheep. Read him here: griffinpauljackson.com.
