Today’s gospel offers an all-encompassing invitation that leaves no room for dithering or procrastination. Jesus does not disguise the fact that his invitation will be costly, saying to them:
“Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
He is not offering his followers security or certainty, instead he is asking them to step out into the unknown. He invites us to trust his leadership and guidance, to follow in his footsteps even when we can’t see the path ahead. With such a challenging invitation it’s inevitable that we develop our own ideas about where following Christ will lead us.
This may be necessary and valuable, but we have to accept that Jesus will override those ideas. He will surprise us taking us in unexpected directions that will present new challenges, open up new opportunities and call us once again to let go of everything. It’s a reminder that when we follow Jesus we can only ever see the next step, not the whole picture.
We live in very different times to those first disciples, we have opportunities and challenges they could never have imagined. Yet the invitation and the challenge is the same for us as it was for them.
We will be asked surrender things that we hold dear in order to better listen and to understand what is precious to others. As we follow Christ through the challenges of that process we can trust that his leadership will lead us into a deeper understanding of what it means to be his disciples.
Where is Christ calling you to follow him today?