The Call

"Jesus said, 'Follow me...' and immediately they left their nets and followed him."
Today I was imagining what it would have been like if Jesus looked at his early would-be followers and thought, "Geez, they seem busy with their fishing, I'd better not bother them." It sounds ridiculous, and these early followers would have missed out on the chance to step into a bigger and better world than they'd ever imagined.

We minister among people whose lives often look very full. Thus calling them TO Jesus often means calling them FROM something else. The calling FROM can feel risky, but it seems like anyone who's ever been called to anything great has been called from something else.

I can see it in my favorite childhood movies--Luke Skywalker had to LEAVE his home on Tattoine in order to defeat the Empire; Superman had to LEAVE Smallville to step into his destiny as a superhero. And in my own life, any degree of adventure and impact on the world I've enjoyed has involved the walking away from something else, sometimes in costly ways.

I feel challenged to remember all of this in the face of students' full lives--as hard as calling FROM can feel for them, it's often the path TO the bigger and better world Jesus has for them.

- Paul