Track 8: Where Do I Stand
From The Jacked Up Life Soundtrack | Based on Chapter 8: “Living in a Jacked Up World”
A few days ago, I sat where the Apostle Paul once stood—on the rocky outcrop of Mars Hill in Athens, with the Acropolis towering behind me and the city sprawling below. Tourists buzzed around, selfie sticks raised high, but in my spirit I could feel the gravity of what happened there. Paul, surrounded by philosophers, skeptics, idol worshipers, and the intellectual elite, didn’t yell. He didn’t cower either. He reasoned. He pointed to truth. And he started with what they did know before introducing them to what they didn’t—the unknown God, made known in Christ.
Truth and grace. Boldness and humility. It struck me how rare that combination is today.
That’s one moment that echoed in my mind when I wrote this song and this chapter. Because these days, you don’t need to stand on a hill in Athens to feel like the ground under your feet is shifting. Some Sunday mornings I’d walk through the church parking lot and see a lifted pickup with a flag decal parked next to a hybrid with a coexist bumper sticker. Inside the sanctuary, their owners sang the same songs, took the same Communion, prayed to the same Jesus, and probably didn’t say a word to each other.
Welcome to church in a jacked up world.
This is the tension I tried to capture in Track 8: Where Do I Stand — a bold, anthem-like cry born from two decades of navigating ministry and friendship in the middle of division, distrust, and digital noise. The musical arrangement swells with urgent energy and defiant hope. Thunderous percussion pulses under layered vocals and chant-style hooks, like a battle cry not against others, but against the soul-numbing temptation to just give up or pick a side and pretend that’s the answer.
“In a world gone jacked, where do I stand?
Truth turned sideways, lines in the sand…”
We live in an algorithm-fed society that rewards outrage, exaggeration, and tribalism. It teaches us to assume the worst about people who disagree with us. Social feeds suggest “enemies,” and over time, we begin to believe the lies: You have to choose a side. You have to be loud to be heard. You can’t love people who think differently.
But then I wrote something that cuts through the chaos:
“Did we forget the Savior’s love for both friend and enemy?
I read it in red. It’s hard, but the truth cuts deep…”
The call of Jesus isn’t to silence or softness. It’s to speak the truth in love. That’s not a compromise. That’s a collision course. And it’s not a comfortable one.
The chapter this song is based on — “Living in a Jacked Up World” — was one of the hardest to write. It wasn’t about pointing fingers. It was about grappling with my own biases, my own comfort zones, and my own failure to listen as well as I speak. Pastoring has shown me that people are desperate for clarity and compassion, but most churches only know how to do one or the other.
Grace with no truth isn’t grace. It’s permission to self-destruct.
Truth without grace isn’t truth. It’s weaponized morality.
“All this noise, still I hear the Shepherd’s voice
Telling me grace beats rage, and love is a choice…”
That line, for me, was the spine of this song. It’s the Shepherd’s voice I want to keep hearing when the shouting gets loud and the lines get blurry. It’s the reminder that love is not passive. It’s not code for tolerance or retreat. It’s a fierce decision to reflect Jesus in a world that’s forgotten what He looks like.
And it’s that tension, standing in the messy middle, that this track captures.
“So I won’t hide just to keep from the fight
I’ll speak the truth in dusk and daylight…”
This is a song to shout in your car.
A song for pastors afraid of preaching the hard stuff.
For believers who are tired of performing for one political aisle or the other.
For anyone wondering if there’s still a place to stand when everything seems sideways.
There is.
It’s not on the left. It’s not on the right.
It’s not throwing rocks.
It’s on the Rock.
“No stone in my hand, I got the Son in my eyes…”
So where do I stand?
Right there.
With mercy in my hands, conviction in my gut, and Jesus in my line of sight.
Let’s not pick a side.
Let’s follow the Shepherd — full of grace and truth.
Let’s remember there’s a better Kingdom than the one we’re arguing about.
And let’s hold the line with love.
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Stay tuned. The next track closes the soundtrack and the book. It brings us not to the end of our jacked up journey, but to the beginning of something rebuilt, real, and redeemed.