May 17, 2018: Spiritual Preparation

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Luke 9:57–58 (ESV)

When we first look at this passage, it might seem that the unnamed man with whom Jesus is speaking is rather admirable. I mean, he even tells Jesus that he will follow him wherever he goes without Jesus  having to say, "Follow me" first! Yet, Jesus' response isn't what we were expecting. He doesn't say, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith," like he does in Matthew 8:10. Instead, he responds by telling the man that following him isn't easy, and that it requires more from him than what he thinks.

I wonder if the man here is more like us than we'd dare to say. Often our expressed commitment to Christ doesn't exactly match our lived out commitment to Christ. Like the man in Luke 9, we often say with our mouths, "I will follow you wherever you go, Lord!" But with our everyday lives we tend to say, "Well, as long as it doesn't require too much of me. Or my time. Or my effort. Or my comfort. Or change. Or sacrifice."

"Wait, I would NEVER say such a thing!" we might exclaim! And that's true--we would never say such things, but that's how we often live our lives, isn't it? God comes after our family, friends, social media, our schedules, sleep, comfort, ourselves--pretty much anything we can think of. It's no wonder that Jesus responded to the man by saying, "Foxes and birds have homes and places to sleep at night, but I don't. You sure you want to follow me?" (Paraphrase)

So how does this relate to the trip and spiritual preparation?

It's easy to live for "mountain top" experiences with Christ--Sundays, Wednesdays, retreats, youth camps, mission trips, etc--but we tend to neglect God in the "valleys" (i.e., Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, times with no special camps, retreats, or mission trips). The thing is, the valleys are actually where we spend MOST of our lives! So if we neglect God 90% of the time, does that 10% really count as "following Christ wherever he goes?" 

Sadly, the answer is no.

As we prepare for our trip in about a month and a half (50 days to be exact), I want to encourage all of us to be more intentional about our daily commitments to following Christ. Mission trips are a great opportunity to go out of your comfort zone, encounter God, and grow spiritually; but these rare, "mountain top experiences" should serve more as "turbo boosters" in an intentional walk with Christ that should already be happening daily.

So how can we be more intentional about Christ leading up to the trip? (And how can we continue this intentional commitment beyond the trip?)

• First, seek to make Jesus the Lord of every day, not just Sundays (and perhaps Wednesdays)
  - Consider starting off by choosing one additional day each week during which you will have a set aside time for prayer, Bible reading, and personal worship.
• Secondly, let your prayers be about more than just your needs and desires
  - Ask God to reveal to you some of the areas of your life that He wants you to turn over to Him. It's a difficult thing to ask, but it opens the door for God to bring even more change to your life.
• Practice being more aware of God in order to join Him in His work and to experience more of His presence 
  - I always say that the constant experience of God begins with the constant awareness of God. One of the things that I will begin asking each week is the question, "How have you seen God working this week?" Jesus says in John 5:17, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” God is always at work in the world, but we just have to train ourselves to be more aware of how He's working.

To make these things stick, considering partnering up with someone else on the team to keep each other accountable! (And I'll know that you've actually read this if you do! Haha.) It's a great way to grow spiritually and to prepare yourself not only for our trip, but for a lifelong journey of actually following Jesus wherever He goes.