. . . someone said to Him, ’Lord, I will follow You wherever You go’ —Luke 9:57
And thus starts the Ozzy thought for the day. Once I read that, I knew I’d be in trouble. I’ve been thinking about human selfishness lately. My own selfish spirit and that of others. We take that and couple it with the lack of being able to fully submit ourselves to God and we have an interesting, perhaps “deadly” combination.
The last few verses of Luke 9 are all about submitting our own selfish natures and submitting to God. Our human nature wants to say, “yes, but..” and as Ozzy points out:
The person who says, “Lord, I will follow You, but . . .,” is the person who is intensely ready to go, but never goes. This man had reservations about going. The exacting call of Jesus has no room for good-byes; good-byes, as we often use them, are pagan, not Christian, because they divert us from the call. Once the call of God comes to you, start going and never stop.
There’s that “call” word again… I wish I could grasp that better.
So, what does any of this have to do with Our Town. Glad you asked! We went to see the local community theater production of Our Town yesterday. I had never seen it. Dean had been in it in Jr. High School. As we walked out of the theater, the people we saw it with remarked about how depressing it was. That there was little conflict (the basic ingredient of most good stories) and that in the end, life was something to not look back upon. I am, of course, not able to completely verbalize what they said. But, that’s the gist, in part.
So I responded, perhaps, it’s actually the opposite of what you’re thinking. Life is about living and living is about life. We are to savor every moment of life and “make the most of every opportunity” Eph. 5:15-20. We’re not to look back and think about the “should’ves and would’ves” (are YOU listening here Byron?!), we are to live for today with hope for the future. We’re not to be in the cemetery, we are to be back home, living life.
So, am I able to truly follow wherever He leads without saying, “yes, but…”?
