I thought those words to myself as I barely got a workout in this morning (after way too many days off). “Jerod, you’ve gotta pull it together.” You ever tell yourself something similar?
It’s been a struggle to muster up the energy and will to do a lot of things that were ‘normal’ just a few weeks or months ago. Everything’s being tested…not so much by God, but tested in the sense that we’re seeing if the things we were doing actually work. We’re seeing if the beliefs we held are actually what we believe. We’re finding out how strong our relationships actually are. And when all the fun fluff isn’t around, we’re finding how authentic our walk with God is.
At my church here in Oklahoma, we’ve been calling this ministry season “Discipleship in Disruption”. The disruption to our way of life this year has been so vast and broad; affecting everyone and every organization across our country. But we’re still called to be disciples.
For me, and maybe for you - the disruption is actually part of the discipleship work God is doing in us. It’s not out of character for Him to break up our normal lives and ask for something different from us.
It reminds me of Matthew 4:18-22 where Jesus starts calling disciples to follow Him. You’ve got Peter, Andrew, James and John all doing their fisherman thing when Jesus shows up and basically says, “Drop what you’re doing and follow me”. Scripture doesn’t tell us how they felt about doing that. We don’t know if they were like, “Wait, but I love fishing” or if they were thinking, “Finally - something different to do”…but I GUARANTEE they didn’t have one bit of insight into what they were getting themselves into.
And that’s what discipleship means at its core: choosing to follow Him over anything that we might be used to or comfortable with. Trusting. Being open handed with our lives.
So back to the false narrative in my head. I don’t need to “get my act together”. What I need to do is drop the act long enough to abide in His presence and His word so that I can be led by an all-knowing God. I need to loosen my grip on what was happening 6 months ago and not try so hard to find the ‘new normal’ on my own.
As people of God, I think we’ve already recognized on a base level that “discipleship of self”, where we chart our own course, is a painful dead end road. Pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps is a terrible plan. The alternative of pursuing God’s presence and allowing Him to show us what our next steps are (or heaven forbid, He ask us to simply wait on Him) is the sweet spot of disruption.