His Disciple: Surrendered

And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” They immediately left their nets and followed Him.– Matthew 4:18-20

To follow a rabbi… meant living with the rabbi, sharing life with him and taking part in the rabbi’s whole way of life. A disciple might accompany a rabbi on all his daily routines: prayer, study, debating other rabbis, giving alms to the poor, burying the dead, going to court, etc. A rabbi’s life was meant to be a living example of someone shaped by God’s Word. Disciples, therefore, studied not just the text of Scripture but also the “text” of the rabbi’s life.” – Edward Sri, Into His Likeness: Be Transformed as a Disciple

The life of an early disciple was a life of following close, not at a distance. They weren’t part of a crowd of onlookers. They wore the dust of their rabbi’s feet, and in order to do that, they had to leave their own lives behind.

Peter answered him, “We have left everything to follow you! – Matthew 19:28

I see it when I read the gospels, and again when I read Paul’s letters to the churches. There is a leaving that must happen in order to follow Jesus; a surrendering of my plan for my life, in favor of His. There is no way to read the New Testament and come away thinking that we still get to call the shots. That we decide the when, the what, and the where for our lives. Not if we’re His disciples.

What have I left in order to follow Jesus? This is the question, and part of it I can readily answer. My right to choose where I live and work has been surrendered so that He could put me where He wants me. My desire to walk away when something became too difficult, too painful even, so that I could let Him transform me through the difficult and the painful thing. To teach me to love difficult and painful people (and to realize that sometimes, I am the difficult, painful one). I forgave people I didn’t want to forgive, remained where I didn’t want to be, and left when I didn’t want to go.

But there is always more leaving to do. The temptation to take the reins is ever present, breathing down my neck. The desire to do what I want to do with my remaining years, which would involve laying on a beach everyday, mostly in silence. The thought that I could pick when and where I retire, or whether I even get to retire, is a wonderful thought indeed. But that’s not how following Jesus works.

He leads, I follow, and in that, my heart must reach the place of surrendering all the ‘I wants’ and ‘I needs’ that keep calling for me to do it my way. Surrender, not control, is what I signed up for. A life that pleases Him more than it pleases me.

If it weren’t for my desire to remain close to Him, I would not have made many of the choices I made in my faith journey. I would have lived where I wanted, worked where I wanted, kept only the relationships I wanted, walked away when it got hard, set way more boundaries around me… all of it. But I wanted to follow at His heels, not at a distance. I wanted proximity to Jesus, not just the identifier of “Christian.” And this is still my greatest want. To be near Him. To follow Him, even when it’s hard. He has become and remains my greatest obsession, worth every bit of leaving and surrendering and hard thing I’ve had to do.

Today, I am challenged to look at my life again and ask Him where I am still trying to maintain control. To assess whether I’m still following Him, or if I’ve veered off to follow the many voices I have access to in this life, or even if I’m just simply following myself. Am I still His disciple, or am I just a Christian in the crowd?

It is good to look around at our lives and figure out if we are still following Him, or just acknowldging Him.

Father, help us be honest with You and with ourselves. Turn us, if we have veered off. Call us up if we have fallen behind. Remind us that You, not this earthly life, are our greatest reward, and that You are worthly of our lives laid down. Help us become people who are fully surrendered to You and not to this world or our flesh.

Thanks for reading. See you next time!