looking ahead & letting go
Lately I was sent an article that ended with Luke 9:62:
Jesus Replied,”No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
At first I felt inspired by this verse, but as I thought more of it, I started to realize the gravity in Jesus’ statement. At times I know I’m guilty of looking back, especially when the road of ministry is rocky and filled with potholes. It’s fun to escape into a daydream where I’m off doing something else… maybe a professional snowboarder or rally car driver… but all I’m accomplishing when I do this is delaying what God has called me to do. This makes me more like the man in verse 59 who said “Lord, first let me go and bury my father” rather than like one of the disciples who dropped their things and left to follow Christ.
I’ve also been reading “The Pursuit of God” by A. W. Tozer, and the section of it I read this morning really struck me. Tozer was writing about how the terms “my” and “mine” reflect a deeper problem, the problem of things replacing God in our hearts. When we refer to something as “mine” we’re placing a possessiveness on that item that we should only put on God (e.g. “My God”.) Tozer looked at the story of Abraham, and ended with the phrase “He had everything, and yet possessed nothing.” The idea took me a few minutes to wrap my head around the fact that we can have something, yet not possess it. After a moment everything ‘clicked’ in my mind, and I was reminded of the fact that everything we have is a temporary gift to steward, and we must be willing to leave it behind if we are to put our hands on the plow in service to the kingdom of God.
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