Ensign: I Want To Be A Disciple!

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3

AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 31 January 2014

These were my son Jeffrey's shouting words after I'd finished reading to ten first-graders about Jesus calming the storm (from Matthew 6) and started to hand out scripts and puppets to perform the play I wrote. It stuck in my head when he said it – I think he ended up playing Thomas – and even with all the kids acting like they were coming off the biggest sugar high, we got the lesson done and the kids had fun. Sometimes to me that is more the point than to be Scripturally accurate.

Ok, before I get burned as a Protestant heretic (saw that phrase on a friend's post, and it sounds great) for saying that, let me ask you: what is Jesus asking us to be a disciple or follower of His? Follow me. I like that, it's simple, direct, and to the point. Jesus didn't try to point out the advantages of being His disciple to the bedraggled fishermen Peter, Andrew, James, and John, or the tax collector Matthew – there really weren't and aren't any advantages other than eternal life – or any others.

There was no cost benefit analysis done, no board meeting in our modern sense of the term, just a choice plopped down right then and there. Follow me. Do we make that a lot harder than it needs to be today, twenty centuries down the road? Do we say you have to have these specific views on prayer and homosexuality and Jewish destiny and the end of the world and can't deviate from them in the slightest before we accept you as one of our own? We shouldn't.

I envy Sarah and Jeffrey and all the kids I teach in a way … they've got all of this to start learning. They're looking at stories and crafts and life for the first time, often without perspective (one thing Jeffrey said two years ago when he watched The Wizard of Oz for the first time comes to mind: when Dorothy comes out of her house after it lands in Oz he said, “And the world turned color.”) and while they need guidance – God's trusted Martha and me with our two, and others peripherally.

We can't wrap them in bubble wrap and protect them from everything. What's that line from Finding Nemo? If you keep things from happening to him, nothing's ever going to happen to him. That means we can't protect the kids, and sometimes not even ourselves, from the dark side of life. But we can come to Jesus our Lord and Savior (even if He's not your Lord and Savior yet), respond to follow Him, and trust God with our and their outcome. Can I tell you a secret?

I want to be a disciple too, David

P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with all of you in my address book, and I hope to be an encourager to action too! If you find that I'm not or you want me to get lost, just let me know -- thank you!

Thank You, Lord, that we can come to you in prayer and that You provide for all our needs, even when we don't know what they are. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence there and around the world.

Thank You, Lord, for everyone in leadership and service, both here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have and the promise of new life through You. I pray that we all seek and have a blessed week! Amen.