"This"

“What does “this” look like? “This”… what? What… “this”?

I’m sitting in a Sunday School class taught by a friend. I’m curious Adonai, because he and I have been trekking a path of discovery together and he’s on to something. “This” that he is now speaking of may be the crux of THE RUT. Your RUT Master, the one we’re trying to figure out together. My friend is smarter and better at this than I am so I’ve come to hear him out as he presents it to his class...

“So, to be given the keys to the kingdom of heaven, we have to totally submit to the will of the Master...”

I’ve heard this before, not new stuff really, but there’s something else slithering under the surface…

“…Submitting is totally against everything our culture teaches. We’re taught to excel and be ‘better than’ and to achieve and acquire. But submission—this is different—what does “this” look like?”

I’m trying to keep my mouth shut because when it opens, things come out and that’s bad. Someone else opens their mouth…

“Isn’t that what we’re here to do, study the Word of God, then pick up our cross and walk with Jesus?”

I don’t know these people, but that guy sounds very familiar. My friend responds…

“That’s what we’re told, but do we? Do we submit our entire lives and everything we are to that cause? I’ll be honest with you. I have a lot of trouble totally submitting. I don’t know the answer. I’m just beginning to understand what real discipleship means.

My mouth remains shut, but my brain is now totally open. THAT’s IT! No wait, “THIS” is IT! Submission isn’t an inheritance or a “succession”—which is what most of us think of it as—our inheritance based on good behavior. Submission… walking with You Jesus, is about taking a step back… maybe a whole bunch more than one step… and giving up even my desire to walk with you side-by-side, because that suggests equality and status.

Instead, I’m to follow patiently and silently behind and somehow—because I am nothing but a follower with nothing more to offer, except for my following—I become not your equal, but your vessel. And a vessel is what a vessel does… it holds cargo for someone else’s purpose, not it’s own.

Oh how strange this must sound to the ones out there reading this who don’t believe in You—Ruler of The Universe; even to those who do believe, but have elevated themselves to the position of Your designer. You know them; the ones who define You by their needs and wants at a given time—they are very much like… me. Yes, Lord, it sounds strange to me too, because as much as I hate to admit it, I’m not yet—even after all my hard work and study— a very good follower.

THE RUT would suggest different behavior from me: Difficult and inconvenient behavior; unpopular behavior. It would suggest that I become Your need and Your want, that I submit to nothing less than becoming nothing more. And that requires me to follow Your RUT down to the very letter of the Word, even when my RUT invites me to take a much more attractive, lucrative, comfortable and prestigious path.

Will I succeed? No, of course not, and that’s why You designed forgiveness into the system. But forgiveness is not where the RUT ends, it’s just a tool to help me not become hopelessly stuck, unable to finish the Trek. With that tool in hand, I press on, my objective no longer my objective, but Yours. And even here, I’m tempted to try to figure out Your plan and how I fit into Your grand equation. After all, I’m Your “buddy” right? What’s my purpose and what powers have You given me to accomplish that purpose—again my quest for status—forgive me?

And that’s just a little bit of what “This” looks like. Like my friend, I can’t see the whole picture. I’m not supposed to—I’m not even supposed to be in the picture. But You said You wanted me here and that complicates things. By the very invitation, I want to think I have value above that of worshiper and slave. It’s who I am… but not who I want to be—not any longer.

The truth of this truth is that what “This” looks like to me shouldn’t matter at all. What I need to continue to get better at asking and seeking and breathing is…”What does “This” look like to YOU, Master?”