FOLLOWING IN HIS FOOTSTEPS by Debbie Wood

“If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily and follow me.”   Luke 9:23 (NLT)

I looked up from my desk at Pasadena City College where I am employed as a chemistry instructor and saw Jonathan standing at my office door.  I smiled to see this young man’s face, knowing how hard he was working to overcome the poverty and despair of his childhood and achieve his dream of becoming an engineer.  He had come seeking my help with a chemistry problem, but our conversation quickly turned to deeper matters of faith in God and the obstacles we face in putting our trust in Him.  “I don’t understand it, Mrs. Wood, why do you believe in God so passionately?”  I smiled at Jonathan with the pleasure every teacher experiences when their student asks a good question.

I never really knew God, I explained to Jonathan, until I left Him, rejecting my Christian faith in anger over God’s apparent indifference to the world’s endless suffering and heartbreak.  This crisis of faith occurred shortly after I graduated from college.  I walked away from God, but He never walked away from me.  In a startlingly vivid revelation I received while stuck in rush hour traffic on the 91 Freeway, God cut through my pain and confusion and showed me how much He cared.  The revelation was in the form of a vision, a single image of His son nailed to a cross, dying a death he did not deserve, to bless the very people who were cursing him, asking forgiveness for them as he died.  With a sudden rush of joy I realized that Jesus wasn’t dragged against his will to Calvary, he crawled on his hands and knees to get there and hang on a tree to win stubborn hearts like mine with his nail pierced hands.

But Jesus did more than win my heart — he changed it too.  He gave me the faith and courage to take up my own cross and face betrayal and abandonment by others in my own life, with a love that, even when nailed to a cross, cannot be defeated.  Then I shared with Jonathan that the reason I so passionately love God and put my faith in Him is because He first so passionately loved me.  I will follow Him anywhere, even if it means hanging on my own cross next to His son.  For I am convinced that if I die with him, I will live with him.  And if I endure, I will reign with him (2 Timothy 2:11-12).                                          

D.W.

Think about it:  Have you asked God to enable you to experience His passionate love for you?  Who is God asking you to show sacrificial grace and love to?