Monday, August 20, 2007

Doubt and Flight

From Leading With A Limp,

"Doubt is the context for surrender. And flight is the path for obedience."

I have been stuck on this quote for days as I think about it in my own life and the lives of our students. It could quite possibly be that one reason teenagers decide to follow the passion of Jesus Christ is because they operate most of their lives out of the context of doubt. And it's in this context that the beaten Jesus, carrying the cross of forgiveness to pay for their sins, calls them to lose their life so they can find it. He call them to surrender.

And once a new life has begun, our students then join a journey with Jesus where he calls them to flight. He calls them to a life of following him. It becomes the path for obedience. It becomes the one thing they must possess to become more like Jesus, and equally important, it becomes the one thing they must possess to keep surrendering. For flight inherently creates a context of doubt. Will Jesus be there during the next step of my life of surrender? Will Jesus provide for me the right path to live for him? Will his Word be a light unto my path? Will Jesus make good on his promise that he will never leave me or forsake me?

Signs everywhere remind us of the dangerous results of what will happen if we jump off a cliff.
But with Jesus, what's the danger of not jumping?

1 comments:

Jen said...

We may have to have a conversation about this when you get back - this keeps coming up.

Sometimes flight is just flight. When is it obedience and when is it fear? (Or is "flight" in this context referring to being airborne rather than fleeing?)

This is a great thing to think about.