Thursday's Thoughts

Matthew 10:37-29

³⁷"Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; ³⁸and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

"Follow me." It's not often that I really think about that phrase, but it just kind of "dummy smacked" me this morning. Bear with me a minute, and look at the definition of "follow" - to go or come after; move behind in the same direction; to accept as a guide or leader; accept the authority of or give allegiance to: to imitate or copy.

With that being said - take a look inward - are you following Jesus? Or maybe you're like my little mini-dachshund, Buddy, who loves me with a passion, but has a real problem "following". Yesterday I let him ride with me to take our youngest to school because he just is overcome with joy when I do (although I can't say our son is thrilled about the traveling partner). So out the front door we go - with Buddy in tow ... or at least it's supposed to be that way. Regardless of how much I yell "heel" or "wait" or "follow me" or "walk with me" that little dog is so sure he knows right where I am going that he takes off like a bullet out of a gun as soon as we get outside. Of course he has no clue that I'm going to my Mother's van that is parked under the trees so he just runs helter-skelter all over the place, and we end up having to retrieve him before we can get going.

Follow. That's not a bad thing. It doesn't mean we are subservient - it means we've relinquished the authority to lead to someone else - and in order to do that it means we've trusted that person to lead us in the right direction.

Don't run ahead - trust Jesus to lead you, and you follow. Hmmmm. made me stop and think. How about you???