I am feeling stuck in my writing. And also somewhat in my life… specifically my career. So it seemed like a great day to write about being stuck! Do you ever feel stuck? It could be something with grief. It could be unrelated. For me, all the things are intertwined. Complicating things along the way… in ways I don’t even realize. And if I do realize it, I sometimes feel so exhausted… vertically flattened… that I can’t seem to wrap my head around dealing with it. Today I feel stuck like an ant at the end of a tamandua’s tongue. (Insert laughter here)
Let’s look at Luke 9: 57-62:
“As they were going on the road, someone said to Him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘The foxes have holes and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.’ And He said to another, ‘Follow Me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.’ But He said to him, ‘Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.’ Another also said, ‘I will follow You, Lord; but first permit to say goodbye to those at my home.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’”
What is happening here is “exacting discipleship.” A call that requires careful attention and precision. Basically, what Jesus is asking of the disciples is to follow Him unhesitatingly, without delay, pronto… like now. But also… with thought, intention and definiteness. In other words… don’t overthink it! Ouch! That hits home. When I’ve read that Scripture, I’ve asked myself, “What’s wrong with going and burying my father first?” or “What’s wrong with getting affairs taken care of and saying goodbye to family?” Isn’t that good stewardship? Love and common decency? Well… yes, it is. BUT… it isn’t honorable at the expense of telling Jesus to wait on me. Being a disciple of Jesus takes precedence. Over everything.
According to the Jamieson, Fausset, & Brown’s Commentary, these are the three types of disciples that Jesus talked with in Luke:
Luke 9:57-58 - The precipitate disciple ( acting suddenly w/out careful consideration)
Luke 9:59 - The procrastinating disciple (delay or postponing action)
Luke 9:61-62- The irresolute disciple… (hesitant/uncertain)
The Precipitate Disciple
Now I don’t want to brag… but I am definitely not the “precipitate disciple". Acting suddenly and without consideration is completely foreign to me! I am definitely an overthinking disciple! Overthinking is linked with anxiety, worst case scenarios, reliving traumatic experiences, failures or mistakes. Check, check, and check. Too many checks! There are a plethora of people in the Bible that dealt with anxiety and any number of the above mentioned concerns. Job, Jonah, David, Elijah, Moses, Gideon, Paul, Habakkuk, Martha, and Jesus… need I go on?
This is the guy that acted quickly to say yes… which is great in the wake of, “Follow Me”... but he also didn’t think about all it would entail. No thought process. There literally would be no place for the Son of Man to lay His head. The foxes had holes and the birds had nests. But there would be no home for these disciples of Jesus either. This man who so whole-heartedly said, “I will follow You wherever You go,” may indeed turn and run when he realizes the lack of all he thinks he needs. Think how easily this scenario snuck up on Peter!
One example I can think of when I acted quickly was about two weeks before college started for me. A friend of mine wanted me to visit the college she had chosen. She insisted I would love it and she felt led to get me there. I acquiesced. From the moment I stepped onto the grounds… I had peace and knew I was supposed to be there. I had little time to transfer records. I moved forward immediately. The admissions office was able to finish transferring everything but my scholarship… which I lost because it was college specific. It was totally worth it though. This is where I met the love of my life.
While that example turned out the best of the best… it was still a hurried decision based on feeling without hardly any thought. I did briefly weigh my losses, but mostly, I put my hand to the plow here. Intuition…or most likely, Holy Spirit led me! But most times, this disciple is not me.
The Procrastinating Disciple:
Here’s where we get down to the nitty gritty. I’m not a procrastinator of all things. In fact, I tend to not put off certain things typically… like unpacking my suitcase right away, cleaning my house, or something of that sort. But I also have perfectionistic tendencies that tend to befriend the procrastinator in me. Christine Caine puts it this way in her book called, Don’t Look Back:
“It is easy to find ourselves hesitating to act and procrastinating to the point where we become stuck, but God never wants that for us…oftentimes, procrastinators are perfectionists, and if someone has perfectionistic standards, then there can be a fear of not reaching expectations, and when that happens, they can begin to procrastinate because they don’t want to fail. I would imagine that perfectionism and procrastination working together in our lives would create a vicious cycle where we couldn’t help but find ourselves stuck and not moving forward. Maybe not in every area of our lives but quite possibly in several. I understand that none of us want to fail, but anytime we take a step forward, we can’t help but risk failure. From my experience, it’s better to move forward and fail than to stay stuck and miss out on all that God wants to do in us, through us, and with us.”
WOW! That is me. I have to be intentional in facing hardships head on. I don’t know if this disciple chose to go back to the funeral or sacrifice his wants and follow. I can learn from his example and be willing to make the sacrifices necessary. Which, given that I buried my own hubby not that long ago… I couldn't imagine not attending his funeral! I don’t think I could’ve done that. Much has been sacrificed within the worn pages of the Word. The most impactful sacrifice, of course, was God giving His own Son for us. Also, what about when God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, the seed of nations to come, on an altar on Mount Moria? Abraham had a choice. There is nothing that indicates that he hesitated for even one moment.
Do you see any hesitation?...
Genesis 22:2:
“Then He (God) said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”
One verse later…
“So Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place of which God had told him.”
We know God provided a ram and released Abraham from this heart-wrenching deed that he was so obedient in following. .
I give Abraham (LOTS of) credit. I don’t know if I could’ve followed through. I probably would’ve spent that entire night overthinking and crying to God. Wrestling like Jacob! Maybe Abraham did… it doesn’t say. What we do know is, he obeyed immediately at the rising of the sun. My own Isaac is probably grateful that I wasn’t given this task. I know I’ve had to do a LOT of hard in the last few years… things I never dreamed I’d be asked to do. Things I wanted to say no to… but ultimately needed to reply, “Yes.” Like Moses. Obedience is fundamental especially through the overthinking of all the “stuff”!
Jesus didn’t call this man to have him dawdle around and overthink things. Neither does he call us to dawdle. Wait, yes… dawdle when He calls, nope! Be prepared because as important as our families are , Jesus is concerned with discipleship here… our own and that of others… so should I be concerned with such matters.
The Irresolute Disciple
Hesitant and uncertain. I have to stop right here and say how hard it is for me to write about these disciples… mostly because I see myself in them so much!
So this guy said he would follow Jesus but then he asked permission to first go and say goodbye to his family. Is it shocking he asked that? Not really from my earthly view. What surprises my view more is Jesus' response! I have an unspoken rule at my house that when a person leaves the house, they need to let whoever is still in the house know when they are leaving and returning. I see it as a common courtesy as well as a safety issue. Imagine for a minute that I am out and about and I happen to meet a friend on the way back home. We have it easy these days, we have cell phones to communicate with… but let’s say I had forgotten mine at home (Yikes! Panic!) and my friend doesn’t even have a cell phone! I know, I know… cut me some slack here in this illustration! Anyway, this friend says, let’s take a trip right now to where there are no phones. (Is that even a thing?) Off the grid? Now I am definitely going to want to go back home first to tell my family goodbye. So, I hesitate and also, I’m very uncertain at doing this on a whim… remember, I don’t do that! But no, I’m not supposed to go back to tell my family, apparently. We proceed and I’m gone for days. My family is distraught. The FBI becomes involved. (Haha!) This is not good. All because I didn’t say goodbye. You get the picture. It would not be easy to just go and leave your family hanging!
In our married life, Ed had a saying that he mostly lived by, “When in doubt, don’t do it.” Sometimes I thought he was nuts! If I lived by that… I mostly would’ve done nothing. Hahaha! I hesitate about a lot and am uncertain about even more. And again, I overthink. Thankfully, we balanced one another out very well. Unfortunately, the scale is tipped a little… read that, “a lot”… these days. Sigh. I suppose there are instances where we might doubt but find it still necessary to move forward. Currently, I have plenty of baskets full of future scariness that I am doubtful about. I find it vital that I work through them. When I lean on Jesus it balances those scales out. I am learning while I have hesitations and uncertainties on one side of the scale with me and Jesus on the other side… it isn’t until I move myself to Jesus’ side that the scales balance.
In this incident with this particular disciple, with his hesitation… Jesus says he should’ve plowed forward instead. The disciple knew he wanted to follow Jesus. He got sidetracked by his love and familiarity for his family. I would’ve been there right with him trying to make a decision!
“But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
I do wonder if when he heard the Lord’s words here, did he quickly insist on following? Was he persistent? Did he grab the plow with both hands at that point and never look back? I hope so. Because I, too, have had hesitation, uncertainty, and procrastination through the years. But I know I have been called and I have chosen… and it certainly IS a choice to grab the plow by both hands and tenaciously move through all the hard. Every day. Fervently.
Roadblocks
It’s all too easy to find myself procrastinating…hesitating and uncertain of way too many things. It can definitely be a roadblock that leaves me stuck. Once when we were driving back from Texas there was ONE time I didn’t listen to my map directions to get off the highway. Big mistake not listening to that voice. No joke… there was an accident far ahead of us that I couldn’t see that left us sitting on that road. Stuck. For about an hour. We sat there and watched all the traffic speeding by on the side road that ran parallel to the highway… you know… the people that actually listened to the voice of the map! We sat there stuck because I chose not to listen one time…ONE TIME! I was quite frustrated with myself because I always listen to the voice to avoid this exact potential scenario.
I have to tell you a little secret. I’ve been working on this writing for about four weeks now. That is very unusual. Mostly words just come to me and I write and write and have a hard time stopping! But like I said at the beginning… I’ve been feeling stuck. Writing almost always keeps me from being stationary within and it has been very difficult for me to sit on this for so long and play the waiting game. As C.S. Lewis says:
“Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I have found out long ago.”
But here I am. My days have been so cluttered/jumbled… you know the emoji where the brain is exploding? Yeah, that. Each day meets me with new goals and I am suddenly side-swiped and I start bouncing around. I start to write and then bounce over to work on an Old Testament class… then bounce to do a Bible study… then social media posts… then look at jobs… then back to writing. Repeat. I am reaching in all sorts of directions! I am restless in the stickiness of being stuck. I think my procrastinating is clashing with my perfectionistic leanings and overthinking is spilling into everything. Analysis paralysis! Overthinking can keep me trapped in my thoughts with no action. That is how these last few weeks have been going. Sigh.
Our Advantage
But wait! I have an advantage that these three disciples didn’t have. I have their history…I have Old AND New Testament insight. I’m prepared with His Word of wisdom for when I hear the words, “Follow Me”. I already have the needed resources of readiness so my feet don’t stay in one place for very long! Throughout my life of following Jesus, at times, He's turned me one way or the other. I was prepared to make my move with the discernment I already possess. Currently, in my “stuck” waiting room, I have been diligent to at least do “something!” To be watchful and meticulous in following the knowledge, vision, and heart given to me from Holy Spirit, SO THAT when He calls me to follow, I will be ready… shoes on and certain to take the next step.... watching closely for sticky traps! So grab your hiking boots… and let’s Rise Up and get unstuck together!
TRAILBLAZING:
If you find yourself in any of these disciples and can relate… here are some webpages worth looking into. I am already trying to work on some of these topics myself!
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