1Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.  –Hebrews 12:1-4

Tonight’s dispatch from discipleship land is going out to all you out there who are still checking this occasionally.  As so often happens when life and ministry abound, time for writing does not.  I pray all is well with you as you follow after Jesus.   As I sit at my keyboard tonight, bleary-eyed from translating Hebrew while propping up my eyelids with Kona, I am pondering what God is teaching me in this season of my life.

The lesson that has been resonating in my mind for these past several months is about the relationship between obedience and endurance.  I have been in seminary for nearly a decade now–not the way they draw it up when you are admitted.  When I started my journey through seminary in the fall of 2003, I was young, brash, and prideful (do they make 23 year old males any other way these days?).  Despite bumps in the road, I feel as called to complete this degree today as the day God affirmed to me after a summer ministry internship 12 years ago that it would be necessary.  If you had told me then that the journey would take this shape, I’m not sure how I would’ve have responded, but it probably would’ve started with denial and ended with disbelief, if not outright anger.  I never would have drawn it up to look like this.  Please don’t misunderstand.  I’m not saying I’d change anything about my life.  I’m quite content, as a matter of fact.  It’s simply that the road to ministry has been much more circuitous and difficult than I originally anticipated.

“I have decided to follow Jesus…no turning back–no turning back.”

This semester, I am in a Hebrew exegesis class which is requiring me to spend time translating portions of the book of Jeremiah.  Translating the words of “the weeping prophet” has proved instructive to me.  As I consider Jeremiah’s calling, and the callings of nearly everyone else in Scripture, for that matter, it now seems to me that none of those heroes of the faith expected what they got when they responded to God’s calling in their lives.  Certainly Moses couldn’t have foreseen wandering in the desert with a grumbling people who wouldn’t obey the God who’d delivered them out of slavery.  Samuel, as a young boy confused by God’s call, would never have guessed that he would be rejected by the people he was called to lead and then by the king he anointed to replace him.  David, as a shepherd boy, never would’ve guessed that he’d be subject to civil war because one of his sons raped one of his daughters.  Isaiah had no idea he’d be sawed in half by an evil king for delivering the words of the Lord.  Saul, as he studied under Gamaliel, likely wouldn’t have believed he’d be tortured, stoned, beaten, and ultimately killed for preaching a Gospel which reflected God’s desire to save Gentiles.  You get the idea.  None of these heroes of the faith signed on for that.

Though it’s obviously not the same thing, I don’t think that anyone comes to Jesus expecting what they ultimately receive.   I mean this in both the positive and the negative senses of the word.  There are benefits in Christ which the world vainly strives after in nearly every other location–peace, contentment, provision, fellowship, love, mercy, and so on.  These benefits are found only in Christ so far as I can tell.  But there are also struggles unique to those who follow the Lord Jesus–self-doubt, the pain of rejection, the burden of knowing that hell exists while so many are oblivious to it, callings which are difficult to fulfill, loneliness, awareness of the brokenness of our world, watching that brokenness continue to wound and hurt people around us we care about, and so on.   Perhaps most strangely of all, it seems that the benefits and the struggles are uniquely intertwined.   It is only those disciples of Jesus who embrace the struggles of following Him who ultimately taste the riches of the Kingdom.

Everyone who follows Jesus Christ can expect two things:  struggle and blessing.  The only thing which will help the follower of Jesus to survive the struggles to receive the blessings is the grace of God in the form of the strength necessary to stand under them.  As it relates to the will of the Christ-follower, this comes simply in the form of assent to the work of the Spirit of God.  We will that His will be done in us as it is perfectly in heaven.  This desire to “will the one thing” is the core attitude of a disciple of Jesus.   We decide to follow Jesus, no turning back.

Though none go with me, still I will follow…no turning back–no turning back.

It shouldn’t surprise us, but to a world unconvinced first of God’s existence and second of His goodness, following a God who could make such a demand of His followers is foolhardy.  Why follow a God who could ask us to do something we don’t approve of?  What possible reasoning could there be for such behavior?

If this opinion were only outside the church, that would be difficult enough.  But because all of us are built differently by God’s design, with our personalities, proclivities, backgrounds and giftings, and because the outworking of that singularity of creation expressed in us is lived out in community with other believers, we are often subjected to the same kinds of questions from our fellow believers.  These kinds of questions are thrown between denominations as they accost one another on a variety of bases, and inside denominations as they argue amongst themselves.  Even inside local churches, there is often a shocking lack of awareness of the variety of God’s creative work, and how He designs it to be deployed in the world.  Seasons of loneliness can be expected in the Christian walk, even for those who are blessed with strong churches and many friends and loved ones.  It is one of the unfortunate consequences of the fall of this world.

We endure this loneliness because we believe that it too is part of the burden Christ Jesus bore for us.  If anyone in the history of existence ever had cause to feel alone, it would be Jesus, even before he was subjected to crucifixion by Pontius Pilate at the insistence of his own people.   Being God incarnate most certainly comes with drawbacks, most notably, a lack of intelligent company who can understand what it is like to lay aside so much of your essential nature.   Leaving the perfect community of the Trinity for a campfire circle with Peter and John, while quaint, likely left much to be desired.  But Jesus lovingly related to and taught his disciples, and our calling is to do the same, even if no one understands us.  To understand our Lord is better than to be understood.  Because we are unique, there are limits to our understanding of one another, which is why our relationship with Christ is so crucial–only He is ultimately equipped to fully understand.  Ultimately and finally, we are understood by the God who made us.  Fleeing to him when we are lonely is then the most appropriate thing a follower of Christ can do.

My cross I carry until I see Jesus…no turning back–no turning back.

I’ve already written on this, but in following Jesus, we are called to struggle against the sin still at work in our mortal bodies.  We do not struggle alone in this, but nevertheless, we must struggle.  Sin is constantly crouching, waiting for an opportunity, and like Cain, if we do not master it, it will master us, yielding death in our lives.  For this reason, we must be diligent in dealing with the reality of our own sins, beginning with our thoughts, and extending all the way to how we behave.  This is the essence of carrying the cross of Christ.  The life of the Christian is not totally comprised by our efforts, but we would be foolish to think that we can do nothing and still mature in Christ.  We must endure until our appointed work on earth is completed, or until the Son of Man returns in glory.  Either way, we endure and work and perservere and struggle against sin until we see our Lord’s face.  Struggle is a core component of what it means to be a Christ follower.

The world behind me, the cross before me…no turning back–no turning back.

If we stopped there, this would be one of the most depressing blog entries in the history of the internet.   Happily, it doesn’t end there.  In the midst of our struggle, God showers His blessings on those who persevere.  Ultimately, the final blessing is to lay down our labors and strivings and be with the Lord.  But until then, we have promises from God that He will stand on our behalf, providing for us.  This provision comes in a variety of forms, but ultimately, we are assured that our sinful humanity will be finally defeated.  We are, as Paul says, more than conquerors in Christ.   Ultimately, arrival at the cross means death to an old way of being, and a welcome into and empowered and eternal life.  It is a life we reach by slow degrees until after defeating the last enemy, we arrive safely home.  No turning back, indeed.

Every day is a new beginning…

Each morning when we wake up, and tomorrow when I awake from my slumber into punchdrunk stupefaction, we have choices to make as followers of Jesus.  The choice boils down to whether we will obey, regardless of the struggles we may encounter, or whether we will bog down in the cares and worries of this world.  Empty promises of loyalty will not suffice.  Our decision will ultimately be made the first time we act.  And the second.  And the 900th.   In case of life, obey Jesus Christ and the leading of the Holy Spirit, even if it means temporary struggle, because the blessings come with each new day.