The Beautiful Unfolding

It seemed a logical decision to make. I was nearing forty, and my husband and I would soon be launching a church plant in a new community. The coming change would bring with it various physical demands–crazy early Sunday mornings, load-in and load-out of portable church supplies, and any number of unanticipated schedule demands. I needed to be in shape.

Not at all athletic, and physically undisciplined, I reached out to one of the strongest, most fit women I knew. “Would you be willing to work out with me?” Trained by the military, she was accustomed to high levels of conditioning, and I was convinced that intensity was what I needed.

It was a simple question, and I assumed the process would be just as simple. I had identified a weakness in my life, and–no matter what it took–I was going to become what I wasn’t yet, but knew I needed to be–physically fit. Several weeks later, even though my friend had paced our workouts, my all in or not at all mindset left me with a torn meniscus in my right knee.

It wasn’t just an interruption or even a change of pace; the injury became a setback. Not only was I not pacing the 10-minute mile I’d hoped to be running, now I was struggling to avoid pain when working out, climbing stairs, or simply wearing heels. Though my desire for change may have been well-intentioned, even right and good, I had lost focus.

The demand to become something different had become more important than the process of growth.

If I’m honest, there have been times in my life when the pressure to produce has muddied the waters of my spiritual life as well. Too often, I’ve confused discipleship with some kind of special elite spiritual ops training. Like a demanding drill-sergeant dressed in Sunday best, I tell myself, Dig deep! Go harder! Withhold nothing!

Discipleship, though, isn’t some kind of self-identified and self-induced personal remaking. It’s an invitation. It’s the drawing into a more significant relationship from the one who knows best our need for transformation.

Rooted in Love

The story of Nathanael’s first encounter with Jesus is one of my favorites in the New Testament Gospels. It reveals just how much the call to discipleship is about love–a call connected to the core of who we are, a call that recognizes our longing more than our resistance.

Nathanael hears Philip’s words about the Messiah, but the situation becomes something entirely different when Jesus walks up. Sometimes I wonder what it must have been like for Nathanael to hear Jesus tell him what he’d been doing when otherwise unseen. His undoubtedly incredulous look must have made Jesus smile. But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He essentially says to Nathanael, I know your heart, and it is pure (John 1:47-48). Surely Nathanael had seen his own dark days and perhaps his own, even darker, thoughts.

But Jesus knew him better.

In all our frailty, this reality of being known and still being loved is what stirs our longing to know Jesus more (1 Corinthians 13:11-12). Many have been the days, though, when after seeing my own brokenness close up, I’ve been tempted to jump on the treadmill of expectation. Start another Bible study, set aside more time to pray, find a spiritual mentor. All those things, along with other spiritual disciplines, are right and good and needed. But when done from a place of demand, they don’t produce life. And they certainly don’t bring us closer to Jesus. If anything, they often widen the distance between what we feel and who we want to be.

Rooted in love (Ephesians 3:17-19), however, those same spiritual practices and places become a beautiful unfolding of the goodness of the cross in our lives.

Is there a call to die to self for me as a follower of Christ (Galatians 2:20)? Absolutely. Is the walk of discipleship easy or without cost (Luke 14:27-28)? Absolutely not. But is it with regret for past choices and with regard for being remade by the Spirit (Galatians 3:3)? It must be.

In John 15:15, Jesus tells His disciples, “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” (NKJV). I am so very loved by Christ. You are so very loved by Christ. I’ve been forgiven of the regret-ridden, most-haunting things I’ve ever done. You can be too.

I have been, and continue to be, made new. So can you.

For those reasons, and those reasons alone, I run hard (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). Will you run with me?

–Written by Regina Franklin Used by permission from the author.