LUKE 9:57

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”

TO PONDER

When I first read this verse, I could not help but hear my father's often repeated words to me as a young boy when I stupidly followed the negative suggestions or influences of my friends, "And if they told you to jump off a cliff, I suppose you'd do that too?"

I got the point he was trying to make, Just because all your friends are doing it, doesn't make it a wise choice. For the most part, this has been pretty good advice for life. My biggest issue with it though is when it comes to Jesus.

Sometimes I feel like the man in our verse for today. I have said the same thing to Jesus, "I want to go wherever you lead me Jesus, Let's go!". Sometimes that's easy. However, at other times it's like Jesus is asking me to jump off that proverbial cliff. At times like that, other voices like those of my father, pop back into my head and suddenly my commitment to following Jesus wherever he leads me, seems to shrink and sometimes even vanishes altogether.

The problem is that the same logic doesn't apply, because the things Jesus asks his disciples to do don't line up with what the world considered to be wisdom. Love one another as I have loved you. Serve one another as I have served you. Humble yourselves and lift others up. This is not the way of the world even today.

A number of our friends and family were very concerned about Elise and my decision to give up both of our permanent full time teaching jobs in Canberra, to move to Adelaide to study at Australian Lutheran College with no work lined up for Elise so that I could study to become a pastor. In the eyes of the world and certainly from a financial perspective, that decision was the equivalent of jumping off a cliff. But we were convinced that it's what Jesus was asking us to do, so we did it, and I have to tell you, we have been blessed in so many ways as we pursued that adventure together with Jesus.

So let me finish today's thought with a variation of the same question my dad use to ask me, "If Jesus told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?"

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, please help me to grow in the courage to put all of my life in your hands, so that when you ask me to make a difficult choice or do something hard, trusting you is my first and most natural response. Amen

Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle