18 Now when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side. 19 And a scribe came up and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” 20 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 21 Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 22 And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” (Matthew 8)
The other night I responded to a facebook post from a friend and found myself in a spool of comments and replies. The topic was the difficulty of following Jesus in our present culture. The overriding theme was that in our society the newest obstacle to whole-heartedly following Jesus is not sex and drugs, but comfort. It turns out that this is nothing new after all: Jesus had those who saw Him in the flesh who thought it would be a walk in the park. We have seen many who walk an aisle, pray a prayer, or "make a decision", then soon "fall away" because some struggle or trial comes up they were not expecting. We expect comfort, easiness, and the world to bend before our every desire. That is how film, commercials, and many other voices in our society present life to us. Get real. Life is not about how comfortable we can be; it is about how conformed we can be to the image of Christ. May we count the cost, and follow Him.
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