Following Jesus

"Jesus replied, 'Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.'" -Luke 9:58

Jesus said this to the fellow who said, "I will follow you wherever you go." He was warning him what would be expected of him if he decided to follow him.  Jesus goes on to imply that he wouldn't even be able to go back home to tell everyone goodbye (v. 62).  My first thought is that people would worry if they didn't know why I disappeared!  Surely Jesus wasn't advocating that I not be thoughtful of others?  So I looked at a couple commentaries on this passage.  The emphasis was on one's commitment to follow Jesus.  It is all too easy to make excuses to not follow Jesus RIGHT NOW.  So Jesus was making the man think about his reason for not going with Him right then and there.

I'm very good at making excuses for not starting a project.....I need a larger chunk of time; I'm too tired today, I'll start tomorrow; I need to do this or that first; it probably won't turn out the way I want it to anyway so why devote my time to it......I could go on and on with the excuses when I could be using that time to start the project!  There are all sorts of books on how to stop procrastinating.   But what they forget when it comes to following Jesus is that once you make a complete and total commitment to following Him, He is there to help you succeed at following Him.  You only need make the commitment to follow RIGHT NOW--no looking back.

I am grateful that the one I follow will not leave me bereft.