Luke 9:61-62
Then someone said to Jesus, "I want to go with you, Lord, but first let me go back and take care of things at home." Jesus answered, "Anyone who starts plowing and keeps looking back isn't worth a thing to God's kingdom!"
Scripture taken from the Contemporary English Version © 1991,1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission.
For several years, a dear friend of mine gently nudged me to attend a Walk to Emmaus. “You don’t need to go,” he would tell me… “you deserve it.” He would continue by explaining that the Walk to Emmaus was an exercise in being completely served and loved unconditionally. “Your every need will be met for the entire 3 days,” he said. “Think of it as Spiritual pampering.”
My problem – and it was MY problem – was that I thought I had to fix myself before I went. I thought that there were areas of my life I needed to work on first before I was “worthy” to attend the Walk to Emmaus. I truly didn’t understand. I guess I somehow felt like I would get there and someone would stand up, point a finger and say, “Oh, look… she doesn’t deserve to be here!”
The fact is, God doesn’t want us to try to fix ourselves… HE will do that. I didn’t have to do a thing except show up… Jesus did the rest, just like He did on the cross when He paid for our sins. But we have this mindset that we have to fix everything before we can serve… or be blessed… and that is just incredibly stinkin’ thinkin’!
This is just another in a long line of excuses we create to keep from serving or answering God’s call. We’ll do it tomorrow, when all the stars align! We’ll help out when we aren’t so young, old, tired, busy, stressed, sick, or needy. The truth is… God wants us to “come as you are” and answer His call. If we have to keep working on other projects – or trying to do His job for Him with regard to our own lives – we just as well stay home.
The end of the story is that I finally decided that I wanted to go to Emmaus worse than I wanted to fix myself first. And the result was life changing. I found a peace and a love in Jesus there that I never had even realized was possible before. I found the courage to give Him everything – warts and all – and let Him sort it out and see what He could use… and what needed to be resolved.
I realized what it means to truly serve, because I saw people give 1000% of themselves to serve me and the other “pilgrims” on the Walk for 72 straight hours. This public, personal example of the service and sacrifice for Christ showed me what Jesus is explaining in Luke 9. We don’t need to waste time and energy trying to get our house in order before we serve Jesus… we just need to get up and get busy. Are you ready to do this? Isn’t it time you stopped looking back and started moving forward with Christ? Isn’t this a great day to begin?
©2010 Debbie Robus
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