This week I studied Luke 9 during my quiet times as part of my Good Morning Girls Bible study. This passage has provided such an appropriate challenge for me leading up to Easter.
Jesus empowers the disciples to perform miracles and sends them out to do ministry with the specific instruction to "take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not even have two tunics apiece" {Luke 9:3}. They are to rely on God's provision through others throughout their ministry. That idea is scary enough and then Jesus eludes that sometimes people will not receive them {i.e. they will not have shelter and food}. Jesus is telling them to go with nothing, trusting in His plan, His provision, and simultaneously warning them that sometimes His plan includes hardship for them. What a challenge it would have been to be those disciples and take such a huge step of faith, choosing to put aside their own means and relying completely on God's provision for their very life, knowing that there would be times when they would be hungry and cold.
This must be what Jesus means when He says, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?" {Luke 9:23-25}
Ultimately it comes down to putting God's plan above my plan. If I were one of those disciples, my plan would have included a place to live, something to eat, and a source of income for security. But God had a different plan for them. And in order to follow Jesus they had to choose that plan {pick up their cross}, insecurities, hardships, and all, and trust that His plans are better than ours.
As I reflected on this over the week I looked inside myself asking just how much do I trust that His plans are better than ours? How willing am I to lay aside my plans, my comforts, my very life, to pick up my cross and follow His plan?
I would like to think that if Jesus stood before me and gave me instructions that I would follow them even if they were not palatable to me. But I have heard God's call on my heart clearly at times and have justified my choice not to follow His leading because I didn't think it made sense. However, the more I learn about Jesus, the more I realize that Jesus doesn't make sense! When there is nothing to eat but five loaves and two fish and there are five thousand hungry people, He says to his disciples, "You give them something to eat!" {Luke 9:13}. The disciples went about passing out the food and lo and behold it never ran out! The Bible is full of stories of people acting in faith, doing things that don't make much earthly sense which is precisely how they point so clearly to God {see Hebrews 11}.
This week God pointed out an area of my life I have a difficult time releasing to Him... my children. We recently watched an episode of "The Bible" series in which Abraham obeys God by preparing to sacrifice Isaac {Genesis 22}. It absolutely did not make sense that God would tell Abraham to sacrifice his son, whom God had promised to father a nation through. And yet, Abraham was obedient, trusting that despite the personal pain this would cause him, that God's plan is better than his, and if God called him, he would do it {Hebrews 11:17}. Ultimately, God provided another sacrifice and spared Isaac, but the point is Abraham's willingness to pick up his cross and follow the Lord no matter the cost.
I am ashamed to say that I am fairly certain that under no circumstances would I do the same as Abraham with my children. It has been this thought that has haunted me all week. It dawned on me that it's not God's ability that I doubt, but it is His plan. He routinely allows bad things to happen in this life to people who love Him. I know that I should still trust Him even if *the worst* might happen knowing that "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" {Romans 8:28}. Even though I believe that, I still want to say no if God calls me to do something that would put my children in {what I deem} unreasonable danger.
My challenge this week has been to put God's plan over my children and it has not been easy! There have been moments in prayer when I let my heart soak in His word..."If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?" {Luke 9:23-25}... when I can feel my grip of control in this area loosening, and then moments later I'll think of something horrific that could happen and my heart tightens hard again.
It was in the midst of this struggle, I walked into our church's Good Friday service holding my babies tight to me because traffic caused us to be late so we didn't have time to drop them off at child care before service began. As I held my precious ones I looked up to an image of God's beloved Son hanging on a cross. As the hustle of being late settled into a reflective calm during the service, it dawned on me for the first time this week that the very thing I have been struggling with, that my children are too great a sacrifice to follow God's plan, is what God has already done for me... for my children... whom He loves so much that He allowed His Child to be tortured and murdered despite pleas from His Child, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done" {Luke 22:42}. Oh God, how can I withhold anything from You? You have withheld nothing from me.
I know that for me to follow Jesus it will require daily carrying of my cross, daily laying down my control over my life and choosing God's plan, which will undoubtedly include choosing to follow even when it doesn't make earthly sense to me and even when it results in pain and difficulty at times. I am empowered to bear my cross because He did it first, He first loved me {1 John 4:19}.
No comments:
Post a Comment