I am back at school now. Today is the first day of classes but I only have a night class. It is a pretty good situation actually. It gives me a little extra time to think about the things I was challenged about at Urbana. I have been thinking about some of the lies we have been told about what is important in life. David Platt's talk made me think about this. The passage he spoke on was Luke 9:57-62. I will copy and paste that here.
As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”
Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
Jesus is asking some radical things in this passage, things that make me uncomfortable. Following Jesus without saying goodbye to our family? I wonder if Jesus called me to that if I would do it. It is not a fun thing to think about. The fact is, Jesus is worthy of all my affections and all my allegiance. I think as Christians even we sometimes forget this. Here is a list of lies I think our culture, even our Christian culture, are telling us, lies that keep us from following Jesus.
1. Family first. Family is good. I love my family. We are "us." And there is no-one quite like us. But Jesus does not call us to follow our family. He calls us to follow Him. This could mean separation from our family. This could mean missing graduations or Christmases or even weddings and funerals if Jesus calls us to something else. The thought of doing these things makes me really uncomfortable and makes me ask "would Jesus really ask me to do that?" Well, he asked those people in Luke 9 to do that. Jesus is not just a guy who offers us eternal life if we accept him into our heart. He is worth giving up everything for.
2. Get a good education. Again, too many times we put schoolwork first. Education is good. I love being in university. In fact, in the future I hope to be an educator in some way. But I see a lot of the young, bright, amazing Christian people here at school, including me, putting school before following Jesus. Hard work, discipline, and intellectual curiosity are things that I think are really valuable. But they are not as valuable as Jesus Christ. Sometimes, believe it or not, Jesus might be calling me to pray with people instead of finishing a paper. Who am I to think that my schoolwork is more important than God's work?
3. You deserve it. I don't know what "it" is. It could be a break, an indulgence, even a relationship. But who am I to believe that I deserve anything except death? How can I have the audacity to believe that God, whom I sinned against, owes me anything? I deserve death, but mercifully Jesus has died in my place.
4. Safety first. North American culture is kind of preoccupied about safety. Seatbelts, hand sanitizer, and warning labels are all things that exist to keep us safe from unwanted dangers. I certainly am not condemning these things (except maybe hand sanitizer, but that's a different story). But I think we should be open to the fact that Jesus may not be calling us to safe things. Anyone who has served cross-culturally can attest to that. Just being a Christian in some parts of the world is dangerous. One speaker at Urbana had served in one such country for many years with their spouse, who died there. The speaker said something along the lines of "Most people would say [my spouse] died that day. But I think [my spouse] would say [he/she] died at Urbana many years before." That is, when we die to ourselves, we are free to serve God. Here is a quote from the beloved Narnia novels by C.S. Lewis: "Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course he's not safe. But he's good. He's the king, I tell you."
Here is a song. It turns out a lot of the things Jesus said were difficult. But he's worth it all.
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