{"id":12,"date":"2008-05-13T10:44:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-13T17:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25551729.post-4448046571831662762"},"modified":"2009-07-07T08:16:35","modified_gmt":"2009-07-07T15:16:35","slug":"got-potential-2008-05-13-174400","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/purpose\/got-potential-2008-05-13-174400","title":{"rendered":"The Road Not Taken"},"content":{"rendered":"

Purpose<\/span><\/p>\n

May 12, 2008<\/strong><\/span>
\nThe Weekly Newsletter of True Potential Publishing<\/strong><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>
\n“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters\u00e2\u20ac\u201dyes, even his own life\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhe cannot be my disciple.”<\/em> (Luke 14:27)<\/p>\n

The Road Not Taken<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Hate my father and mother? Brothers and sisters? Sounds a bit harsh doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it? Not much of a Mothers Days weekend topic, Steve. Any other cheerful aphorisms you want to lay on us while we plan our special day with mom?<\/em>
\n
\n<\/em>That verse and its twin, Matthew 10:37 are what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s known as red letter verses. Some Bibles have all the words Jesus actually said Himself printed in red ink. That way you know Jesus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 actual words from the rest of the Bible.<\/p>\n

Want to know what else is in red letters? “\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”<\/em> (John 6:53) That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a tough one to explain to a third grade Sunday school class. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll bet they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make flannel-graphs for that verse.<\/p>\n

Jesus said a lot of disturbing things.<\/p>\n

Do you really think He wanted folks to hate their mothers and eat His flesh and drink His blood?<\/p>\n

Probably not.<\/p>\n

But, for a lot of us, He was saying something equally radical. Unless you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re willing to walk away from everything you know and everything you value, everything that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s secure and meaningful in your life, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not worthy to become my follower. <\/em>To people who put their families ahead of everything else, that meant mom and dad and brother and sister. To a young rich ruler, it meant selling everything he had and following Jesus. To the crowds who couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see past Jesus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 miraculous bread and fish dinners, it meant forgetting about food and feasting on Who He really was.<\/p>\n

Jesus was a radical. He told His followers, unless you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re prepared to be a radical too, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bother coming along.<\/em> This disciple thing ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t no hobby. Unless you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re willing to despise everything this world has given you, family, friends, wealth, security, sustenance, even your own life, for the sake of following Him, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bother coming along.<\/p>\n

It still sounds harsh.<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got to be a happy medium \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t there?<\/p>\n

Sorry, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not. You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in or out, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the deal. By the way, Jesus lost a lot of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcdisciples\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> every time he said something like this. Only the radicals stayed around.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got some good news for you though. Jesus loves you. The One who wants you to give up what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dearest to you, gave up His life so you could live forever.<\/p>\n

Another piece of good news? He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not interested in you hating your mom and dad and He doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily want to you to go through life penniless or hungry. That wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the point.<\/p>\n

This is what He meant – If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to follow me, someday you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to get hit with a choice. It may be: follow what mom and dad have planned for you of follow what God has planned for you. It may be: keep the money and possessions you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve worked all your life to acquire or give it all away and embark on a mission only you know is true. It may be: remain in your daily grub for sustenance because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a known quantity or give up your loaves and fishes and feast on food that will wake up your soul.<\/p>\n

If you want to follow Him, the day will come when you have to decide what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important. It always does. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not willing to let go of everything you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t follow along.<\/p>\n

*****<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

I learned a poem in high school. The only poem I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever memorized. As a high school kid I thought it was pretty impressive to know any poem that didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t start with “Jack be nimble.”<\/p>\n

The Road Not Taken<\/p>\n

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
\nAnd sorry I could not travel both
\nAnd be one traveler, long I stood
\nAnd looked down one as far as I could
\nTo where it bent in the undergrowth;<\/p>\n

Then took the other, as just as fair,
\nBecause it was grassy and wanted wear;
\nThough as for that the passing there
\nHad worn them both about the same,<\/p>\n

And both that morning equally lay
\nIn leaves no step had trodden black.
\nOh, I kept the first for another day!
\nYet knowing how way leads on to way,
\nI doubted if I should ever come back.<\/p>\n

I shall be telling this with a sigh
\nSomewhere ages and ages hence:
\nTwo roads diverged in a wood, and I \u00e2\u20ac\u201c
\nI took the one less traveled by,
\nAnd that has made all the difference.<\/p>\n

Robert Frost wrote that. I rewrote it from memory \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 after all these years. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still impressed.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be fifty next week.<\/p>\n

My high school wrestling coach, Gary Bowden, was inducted into the California Wrestling Hall of Fame last weekend. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m proud of him, he deserves the honor. I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be there to see it. The east coast is a long way from the west coast.<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll call Mom on Sunday. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll wish her a happy Mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Day and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll wish me a happy birthday. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re due a visit. And we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do it when we can, we always do. But the east coast is a long way from the west coast.<\/p>\n

You never give up your life without getting back much more in return.<\/p>\n

Funny thing, you get back the stuff you gave up too \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 only better. In the last couple of weeks I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve spoken with high school team mates I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t heard from in thirty years. Each of us recognized the other\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s voice in an instant and three decades faded away like wisps of smoke.<\/p>\n

When we do make a trip to visit family out west, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a real reunion. Brothers and sisters all show up; all with their own families. We get to meet the newbies, born in and married in, since our last visit. Mom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always tickled at all the bodies and commotion. And it always ends happy\/sad and much too soon, but always wonderful.<\/p>\n

But the life I got by giving up the life I had is far beyond anything I could have created on my own. It is the one I was meant to have. I have a family and a mission and a relationship with my Master. And they are the ones I was meant to have.<\/p>\n

It took a long time to really understand the poem. Frost was right – it has made all the difference.<\/p>\n

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”<\/em> (Matthew 10:39) Another one of those red letter verses.<\/p>\n

Until next week.<\/p>\n

Telling this with a sigh,<\/em>
\n<\/em>
\nSteve Spillman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Purpose May 12, 2008 The Weekly Newsletter of True Potential Publishing “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters\u00e2\u20ac\u201dyes, even his own life\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhe cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:27) The Road Not Taken Hate my father and mother? Brothers and sisters? Sounds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[412,11,16,186,8,276,7,15,540],"tags":[629,622,630,632,626,151,864,631,623,625,624,628,627],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions\/263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}