Mentors Like Snowflakes on a Winter Day

I’ve been a follower of Jesus now for twenty-five years, but until just recently, every time I’ve heard the Great Commission—go and make disciples—I’ve felt ill-equipped. Everyone else obviously knows so much more about the Bible and God than I do. Even if I take the risk and open my mouth to talk or teach, I’ll probably just sound dumb. I probably won’t have the right answers. How am I supposed to go and make disciples? 

I can relate a whole lot to Moses talking back to the burning bush in the wilderness, Lord, I am slow of speech and tongue, would you just send someone else? (see Exodus 4:10). 

I recently read Centering Discipleship by Dr. E.K. Strawser and was struck by her question to readers—Have you ever been discipled? Have you ever discipled someone else? How do you know? 

It took me back a little. No one has ever approached me to say, “Do you want to be discipled?” and although I’ve reached out to a couple of women who were farther down the road than me, I can’t say I’ve ever been officially mentored by a person who felt appointed to mentor me. What does it mean to be discipled in the way of Jesus? 

There is an ancient Jewish blessing that says, “May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi,” meaning: may you follow your teacher so closely that the dust they kick up settles on your own clothes as you walk together.  

The people that Jesus called to follow him walked that closely with Jesus for three full years. They entered Jesus’ inner circle as men and women with a history. They came as fishermen and tax collectors and zealots. Over the course of three years, Jesus would bewilder them with a message and a way of living that turned the order of the world on its head. 

After three full years, the disciples gathered in an upper room and received the power of the Holy Spirit following Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. With that power, they were ready to go and make disciples. They were ready to have a few people follow them so closely they’d be covered in their dust. 

I like those questions: Whose dust have I been covered in? Who is covered in my dust? 

The other day, I was asking some friends to go around a circle and answer the question, “Who has discipled you?” An older gentleman responded that he had been discipled by his father all his life. Even in these later years, his father is still teaching him new things, showing him how to age gracefully and finish well. I don’t know whether his dad set an intention in his heart to mentor or disciple his son. I’m guessing there was never a direct invitation or an articulated agreement to spend six months or a year or a lifetime in a discipleship relationship. His father just lived in such a way that he became his son’s mentor, teacher, and model of a faithful life. 

I think that’s a beautiful way of thinking about our roles as faith mentors and disciples in the kingdom of heaven. No matter how ill-equipped I might feel, there’s always going to be someone who is a little bit behind me on the journey. And no matter how much I feel like I’ve “arrived,” there will always be someone a few steps ahead of me on this same journey. 

Whether we’re aware of it or not, we’re all being formed and shaped into someone’s likeness . . . it just might not be the image and likeness of Christ. I’ve accumulated the dust of many, many different teachers. Some of that dust needed to be scrubbed away. Some of that dust is still stuck in the hidden places, waiting for me to let the Light of Christ shine into those shadows. 

But the dust of my rabbi, the dust of Jesus, is one that washes me white as snow.  

When I think about my faith mentors, those people throughout the years who have discipled me into the likeness of Jesus, I see them now as individual snowflakes falling into my life, covering me in a blanket of grace and peace and love, so many witnesses of God’s mercy, so many witnesses who have shown me what it’s like to be transformed by Jesus, to respond to his love, and to walk a faithful life, through valleys of suffering and mountains of sorrow. 

They are my parents and children, my husband and friends, professors and authors, preachers and neighbors, dozens upon dozens of people who, if I have eyes to see and ears to hear, have given me something to consider about God’s love. There have been words they’ve said, sure, but also a certain way they lived that made me think, I want that. Whatever it is, whatever buoys them, whatever aura of joy and peace surrounds them, I want to be immersed and held in that. 

I would like to be following my Lord so closely that I’m coated in his dust, walking in a windstorm so consumed by his love that I don’t even necessarily notice that I’m kicking up my own dust, coating the people around me in the same love of Christ. What a way to live! What peace! What joy! 

Before I can go and make disciples, the only requirement is to be a disciple myself—to walk, inhaling the breath of God’s Spirit, knowing his lovingkindness, experiencing his grace. Then, I can go and pour out that same love and grace into the lives of everyone I meet, seeing my daughter and sons and husband and friends and neighbors all with the same lovingkindness, forgiving the way I’ve been forgiven, living out the Way and Truth and Life.   

What a way to live! What a sweet invitation! What a marvelous coating of dust, the cleanest coat of snow. 

—Written by Sarah M. Wells. Used by permission from the author.