yeah, i know that there is pain/ but you hold on for one more day and you/ break free, break from the chains

now, granted, most everyone my age (30’s) understands the silly, but catchy nature of wilson phillips music. no one would proudly sing their stuff anymore. for my wife and i, it’s more of an excuse to be overly dramatic and perplex the kids when one of their songs rotates around on the radio (which is a very rare occasion.) they were a group that made several albums on one theme ‘the difficulties & joys of love from a woman’s perspective’, which for me holds no great appeal.

but when peter replies to Jesus in mark 10, ‘Lord, we have given up everything to follow You!’ the first line that popped in my head was ‘break free, break from the chains.’

i am fully aware that there was no scriptural allusion meant from the wilson sisters and ms. phillips, but that’s what we need to ask God to help us do daily. there are lots of things that distract us from following God. there are things that are legitimate concerns for us, real struggles and things that seem to be great priorities. but we need to remember that Jesus said ‘no one who works the plow & looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’ in more modern terms, if you have been given an gps to use in order to get to your destination, and you keep ignoring the directions, you are going to get hopelessly lost and off track.

in mark 10, peter and the rest of the disciples are confronted with the reality of just what it means to follow Jesus. it really meant giving everything up, absolutely everything, to do so.

so what is everything? to peter it meant his personal business, income, shelter, home, family and any sense of comfortable normalcy. for peter, everything from a worldly perspective that had once been deemed as ‘his’ was now falling to neglect. there were new priorities now and things had taken quite a major change.

life was redirected now, and things really couldn’t go back to what they had been before. but the awesome thing here, is that Jesus promises an entirely new sense of ownership that will come through all of this. He isn’t setting out some decree that we will all become physically wealthy, but that the resources and lives of those who follow Him along side of us will now become our blessing and community.

but in making this change, we are called to live against the world’s ideas of priority. and in doing so, there may be some people around us who become uncomfortable, even to the point of hostility. but that is precisely why we must continue to serve, so that they may be met with the reality of the love of Christ.