I Will Follow You God, But…

Luke 9:61 I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home. 

One of my favorite questions to ask those new in recovery is, What is going to be different this time?  It was one of my least favorite questions I was asked in treatment, but it was necessary.  I desperately needed to figure out how life was going to change.  If nothing changes, nothing changes.

So, I ask those I work with, What is going to be different this time around?  I frequently get answers like this:  I’m going to live for God and stop using drugs.  I answered much the same way in treatment but my counselor was wise enough to call me out on it.  She wanted to know specifically what I was going to do differently.

I told her that I was willing to change everything.  If God wanted me to sell all my possessions and become a missionary in some far-off land, I would do it.  She looked at me as if I was a bit thick.  I was.  Eventually, I started to get her point though.

In today’s passage, this man tried to get away with making a similar blanket statement about following Christ.  He planned to follow, but he had some other stuff to do first.  This sums up my entire life. I plan to follow God, I just have some other stuff to do.  I call myself a follower of Christ, but when it comes to the doing, I need to… (insert generic excuse).

We all have reasons not to follow, even though we intend to do so.  The reality is, we just do not want to get too crazy with this faith thing.  We want a little God in us but we do not want to disrupt our normal lives.  We want God to be in our top ten list of important things in life, but rarely are we willing to put him in that top spot, above all else.

This leads us all to some level of destruction, even if it is not immediately obvious.  Putting anything above God in my life is distracting and destructive.  It is only in following God above all that everything is in its proper place.

So, as my counselor asked, What does this look like?  I do not do it perfectly, but if I say I follow God above all, it must impact my behavior right now.  When I get up in the morning, I must spend my first hour of the day pointing myself at God.  Through the day, I need to continually choose to keep my eyes on Christ, making my feet follow.

As it turns out,  following God does not mean I need to leave my career.  I must however, learn to do my job with my eyes on Christ instead of on me.  Am I willing to share what God has done for me or am I embarrassed by my faith?  Am I consumed with God or am I  consumed with my own pursuits?

If I say I follow God, I need to stop making excuses and follow right now.  If I do not, then my faith is just a good intention.

The Seeds of the Spirit is a daily blog based on a walk through the New Testament.  Written from the perspective of my own addiction, it explores the common defects of our flesh nature and the solution, our spirit life.  If you find it helpful, sign up for the blog as a daily email, tell your friends and like/share it on Facebook.