One day Jesus took a walk on the beach and saw two brothers named Simon and Andrew working as fishermen.
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him.
I would have asked where we were going. If you’re asked to take a trip, isn’t it fair to know at least the general path you’re going to follow? Shouldn’t you get to know what’s going to happen, what’s going to be expected from you, before you commit?
I think God’s answer is, “No.”
I’ve spent the last eighteen months or so immersed in this notion of chasing dreams, and if I’ve learned one thing it’s that God isn’t usually going to show me the entire course before I begin. Even when I think I know what’s supposed to happen or what He wants, I’m likely to be wrong.
It’s up to me to prepare as much as possible, but at some point I have to take a step without knowing much more than the next step along the path. There has to be a certain amount of trust that God will show me what I need to know when I need to know it.
Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t claim to know exactly how that works, and I certainly don’t claim that it’s easy or comfortable to commit to a process when you don’t know where it’s leading. And I don’t claim some heroic sense of faith about stepping into the unknown.
But I’m pretty sure that God’s not about easy or comfortable. I think He values character over comfort and motives over results or even specific purposes. And I think He totally understands how hard it is to do something completely on faith, especially when it’s scary. That’s why He offers to journey with us.
He didn’t say, “Go.” He said, Come, follow me.”
I once read a survey that claimed that more than 90% of the respondents wanted to write a book and fewer than 1% actually wrote one. So what distinguished the 1%? Was it talent? Vision? Purpose? God’s guidance?
I don’t think it was any of those. I think what distinguished the 1% was that at some point they actually sat down and wrote. They started.
A dream is the God-inspired desire to share your unique gifts and passions to serve others and make a difference in the world.
That “God-inspired desire” is present in every person.
To every one of us He says, “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:18)
To every one of us He says, “Come, follow me.”
I think He’s still saying those things. Right now.
Please leave a comment here.
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